Epigoni
by P.H. Wise
Summary: As one story ends, another begins. In the wake of the events of Not Fade Away, Stargate Command is about to receive a crash course in the subterrestrial world...
1. Amidst the Ashes

Like most stories, ours begins with a girl.

Well, no. Actually, it begins well before that. It actually starts with a vampire. And he was the meanest vampire in all the land. All the other vampires were afraid of him: he was such a bastard. Then one day he's cursed: by gypsies. They restore his human soul. And all of a sudden he is mad with guilt. You know: 'What have I done?' You know, he's freaked.

That's when the girl enters, stage right. She was a pretty little blonde thing, Vampire Slayer by trade. And our vampire falls madly in love with her. Eventually the two of them- well, they get fleshy with one another. Well, I guess the technical term is perfect happiness. But when our boy gets there, he goes bad again. He kills again. It's ugly. So when he gets his soul back for the second time, he figures hey, he can't be any where near Miss young puppy eyes without endangering them both. So what does he do? He takes off. Goes to LA to fight evil - and atone for his crimes. He's a shadow- a faceless champion of the hapless human race.

This vampire, he gathers friends to help him to fight the good fight, yeah? And for a while, things are good. But then he gets offered the offices of Wolfram and Hart – the law firm representing the biggest bads in the world, and he does what anyone would do. He takes it. Only thing is, doesn't just intend to run the place, he intends to bring it down from within. And with the help of those friends of his that had survived this long, he does.

But the cost...

That would have been the end of the story. By all rights, it should have been. But if all life's a stage, and we're all actors, then, well, just because one set of actors is done doesn't mean the play is over. And until all is said and done, you never really know who's playing the really important part.

Our story begins with another girl.

Well, ok, so it actually begins with another guy. He's not a vampire, but he's not human either.

When the story of one group of Champions came to an end, the story of another pair was only beginning; and it all began that fateful, blood-soaked, rain-drenched night...

* * *

Epigoni  
by P.H. Wise

An Angel crossover fanfic

Prologue: Amidst the Ashes

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel. I don't own Stargate. Please don't sue me. This story contains spoilers for the final episode of Angel.

* * *

The dead lay strewn in great rotting piles across the alleyway beside the Hyperion Hotel, and the steady rain-beat mingled with the fading heart-beats of those who were yet dying; battle and carnage had come to Los Angeles, the human streets with inhuman gore imbrued, and the rainwater mingling with the blood of the fallen, demon and mortal alike. Here was the place where the Champions had made their final stand; here was the place where they had met their grisly end; and all around them lay the bodies of their enemies.

Charles Gunn lay facedown on the cold pavement, his dark features made unnaturally pale by the blood loss that had claimed his life; the legacy of his battle with the Senator and her vampires. Near at hand were twin piles of dust made mud by the rain, and a sword close at hand, the only remnants of the only two ensouled vampires in the history of the world.

The city itself was in chaos. The army of the Archduke, leaderless and driven mad by the death of their leader, raged through the streets like a plague of locusts, killing and destroying everything in its path. Hell had been poured out upon the Los Angeles basin, and this time there was no denying it; humans fled or died or fled and died. The police were dead or scattered, and the entirety of the Los Angeles basin had been quarantined, with none allowed in our out by a massive military blockade, which also instituted a complete media blackout. Those who had run the Initiative knew full well that the general public was not ready for this, and they would do all that they could to prevent this news from leaking any further than it had already.

Sword in hand, the Groosalug surveyed the battle-site grimly. He was too late. He was too late to save his Princess, and too late to avenge her; too late to fight at Angel's side in one last glorious stand against the darkness.

Too late.

With a mighty roar, Groo drove his sword point first into the concrete, and it sank down to the hilt, cracking and buckling the pavement around its point of entry.

As if in answer to his bellow, a body shifted amongst the pile of demon-rot. He rose at once, rushing immediately towards the source of the movement, to save if it was human, and to destroy if he found it otherwise.

There.

Movement.

Stooping down, the Groosalug hefted a partially eviscerated demon corpse aside. Beneath it lay a woman with metallic blue eyes and hair, clad in a red leather catsuit, and covered in blood: some her own, but most her enemies'. She coughed weakly and struggled to rise, but to no avail.

Groo stared at her for a long moment before he felt the sudden shock of recognition. "You!" he exclaimed. "You are the one known as Fred!"

Cold blue eyes met with black, and for a time, there was only the sound of squelching gore and shifting leather as she vainly continued her efforts to rise unaided.

At length, Illyria spoke. "You speak of my shell."

Groo's eyes narrowed dangerously. "You are not the one called Fred?"

"I am Illyria."

She paused again, and this time the silence was almost painful. Finally, the ancient god-king did a thing that she would not have been capable of even weeks before: she humbled herself, and asked for aid. "...I require assistance."

Groo offered his hand, and she took it. And there, in the rain-drenched, gore-imbrued back alley of Los Angeles that had become a grave of Heroes, the story of the Afterborn began.

End Prologue

* * *

Author's notes: Just an idea that I've had kicking around in my head for a while. Hopefully, I'll have free time enough to continue it.

Feedback is most definitely welcome – particularly constructive criticism. Nothing makes me happier than to know what specifically you (the reader) liked, what you didn't like, and (most importantly) why.


	2. Cleaning Up After Hell

Epigoni  
by P.H. Wise  
An Angel crossover fanfic

Chapter 1 – Cleaning Up After Hell

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel. I don't own Stargate. Please don't sue me. This story contains spoilers for the final episode of Angel. This chapter contains excerpts from numerous episodes of Angel.

* * *

In the depths an underground bunker far beneath Cheyenne Mountain, four men and one woman - General Hammond, Colonel Jack O'Neill, Daniel Jackson, Major Samantha Carter, and Teal'c - sat in a briefing room that could only be described as cozy. It wasn't the physical features of the room that earned it the title of cozy, however. Certainly, they were each provided with a black leather chair, gathered around a red and black painted wooden table, but their surroundings were far from ordinary; through the window of the briefing room could be seen a large room, the principle features of which were the ancient stone circle that dominated the far wall, the ramp leading up to it, and the heavy machine gun batteries before it that stood unmanned at present. The 'cozy' came more from the easy familiarity and friendship of those gathered than from anything else.

Yet General Hammond's expression was grim as he briefed the flagship team of the SGC on the latest crisis. "A little over two hours ago," he began, "a police squad car in Los Angeles was attacked by what the officer described as 'an army of monsters.' After radioing in a call for assistance, all contact was lost with the officer."

Teal'c raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

Jack's expression was a dubious one. "An army of monsters, Sir?" he asked, his tone carrying hints of sarcasm.

"I know how it sounds, but after radio contact was lost, the local police departments dispatched several nearby units to investigate." Although it scarcely seemed possible, General Hammond's expression became even grimmer. "They found what was left of the officer scattered across twenty yards of roadway, as well as the bodies of six civilians and significant property damage." He paused to let that sink in before going on. "Ten minutes later, another officer about a mile away made a similar report. The police mobilized in force. Every officer in the area was called in, including a highly trained and capable SWAT team. None of them reported back after making contact with these 'monsters'."

"The Goa'uld?" Major Carter asked.

Hammond nodded. "It's possible. If an advance force of Super Soldiers had landed in the Los Angeles area, that might explain why the police would think that they were facing an army of 'monsters."

Teal'c interjected. "Such tactics are unlike those usually practiced by the Goa'uld."

"So either our old buddy Anubis has learned a few new tricks..." Jack began.

"Or a new, heretofore unknown and hostile alien race has landed in L.A.," Daniel finished.

The General nodded. There was another possibility, he knew, but such public displays were completely out of character with any kind of behavior thus far observable in hostile sub-terrestrials, and the likelihood of them being organized into an army was, from all available data, slim to none. "The Pentagon agrees with your assessment."

"So, what are we walking into, General?" Jack asked.

"We are working with the Army to place the entirety of the Los Angeles basin under quarantine. The media blackout is already in effect, and the weaponry to deal with super soldiers is being supplied to the troops in the area by our friends at Area 51. By the time you arrive in California, if all goes according to plan, the threat will be contained. Contained, but not eliminated. We have recalled every team that could be spared from their current missions off world. You will be working with SG units two through eleven, as well as a number of squads from the Army and the standard Air Force; your assignment is threefold, first to deal with the alien threat, second, to evacuate any civilians who may still be in the area, and third, we need some troops on the ground who have faced this kind of thing before, and people, you're it. Any questions?"

Silence hung in the briefing room.

"SG-1, you have a go."

* * *

The courtyard of the Hyperion was wild and overgrown, full of clinging vines, brushing leaves, and catching branches. The song of the crickets filled the air, the little insects heedless of the goings on of the human and demon worlds, greeting the night in the only way they knew. The rain had stopped several minutes earlier, but the clouds still loomed ominously over Los Angeles; nature yet had more rain to fling down upon her errant children, and the rain-smell filled the air; the air was clear, and the smog had been washed away, for a little while.

It was through this courtyard that Illyria and the Groosalug passed on their way into the hotel, and although Illyria's injuries had not healed, she was too proud to accept the help that was offered her. "I do not require your assistance, half-breed," she said, although her wounds belied her.

Groo didn't press the issue. "We may take shelter here," he said, glancing about at the hotel lobby. It was covered in dust, and the mess left in the wake of Jasmine's brief rule here had not been fully cleaned up, but it would suit their needs. The settee was still there, sitting in the middle of the lobby. Feeling very old and very weary, he sat himself down on it and looked towards Illyria, who yet stood upon the steps of the entryway.

The Old One looked about, birdlike, her eyes flitting from one side of the room to the other, before she strode purposefully into the lobby and then up the stairs and out of sight down one of the hallways.

It was then that the sheer strangeness of his situation really hit him. Here he was in Los Angeles, again. He had come because of hearing rumors of the stirrings of the order of the Wolf, Ram, and Hart in the city of Angels, and he had thought to lend his strong sword arm to the cause of Angel Investigations. But no one had been at the Hyperion when he'd arrived; it had looked much like it did now, as though no one had been there in some time.

He'd searched the local demon bars for any word of where he could find Angel and his warriors. It was there that he had run into a drunken Lorne, and there that he had learned of Cordelia's fate, and of Angel's plan to challenge the Senior Partners. He could have stayed to hear more; Lorne was certainly talkative once he'd gotten a couple of sea-breezes in him, but Groo had rushed out then and there. Overcome by grief at the news of the death of his Princess, he had rushed out to join Angel and his friends, to fight at their side in one last, glorious battle.

By the time the Groosalug had arrived on the scene, the battle was ended, and the streets drenched with demon-gore. And now, here he was in the Hyperion again, not twenty yards from where Angel and his warriors had met their glorious end in battle, in the company of one who looked like Fred but wasn't, and behaved for all the world as if she were a deity.

Even when she'd been Fred, he hadn't really known Fred that well to begin with.

Not for the first time, Groo found himself missing the simple days of his life as the Groosalug of Pylea. Vanquish the flame beast, defeat the drokken, save the day.

And yet... his life had been a hollow thing before he'd met Cordelia. Before for her sake, he'd dared to imagine that he was not simply 'cow-tainted,' but someone worthwhile because SHE loved him.

FLASH-

"No," Cordelia said. Fred gave her a look, and Cordelia elaborated. "You want me to say something to Angel about Wesley. Sorry. Can't. Won't."

"Why? Why can't you? You've known them both longer than anybody. Angel would listen to you..."

"Probably. But he doesn't want to hear it. Which is why I'm not going to burden him—"

"Look," said Fred, "whatever he did... It's Wesley. You care about it. I know you do. Can you imagine the pain he's in, how horrible he must be feeling..."

Cordelia interrupted Fred, and her statement was as a knife in the Groosalug's heart. "Angel's feelings are the only ones I care about. He's my priority."

FLASH-

Groo walked in through the front doors into the darkened hotel, and Cordelia smiled and ran towards him. Groo's mood brightened, and he smiled widely.

And then she spoke.

"Angel. Oh my god, do you know how happy this makes me? I ask you not to go and you didn't go? I'm so glad to see..."

Groo stepped into the light, his smile no more than a memory.

" ...you. Hi."

FLASH-

"I love Angel?" Cordelia asked, "What are you talking about? I - love... you know... us."

Groo smiled sadly. "You two are so obviously connected. You finish each other's sentences. You laugh at the same jests. When he grieves, when he is hurting, your heart breaks for him." He paused. "In my heart I have known the truth for some time. I've just been - struggling - to find the courage to do what is right."

"I don't know what to say, Groo."

"Tell me I'm wrong. - That I should stay. - That you love only me."

She blinked away tears, and said nothing. And at that, Groo picked up his bags and left, leaving Cordelia standing in the foyer, staring after where he had gone.

FLASH-

And now she was gone.

Not simply lost to Angel, a fellow warrior who had won his respect, but gone.

Dead.

And he was too late to avenge her.

Ever the champion, ever the man of action, Groo had never been particularly introspective. But there, in the silent hotel, with a grieving Old One as his only company, and all his world fallen around him, he permitted himself a moment of weakness.

* * *

Illyria stood before the open door of the room that had once been her shell's second cave. Between her grief at the death of Wesley, her injuries, and the deaths of Angel, Spike, and Gunn, the god-king was nearly spent; only her pride sustained her now, and even that would only carry her so far. She stepped into the room.

It was cluttered. In Fred's haste to move out, she had left things behind. The cast off knick-knacks of Fred littered the floor: here a book on astrophysics, there an old taco wrapper, an old silver cross on a silver chain lying on the bed, and a device that was either a very strange toaster or a ranged decapitation device in the corner. The smell of the place assaulted her senses, and for a moment, Illyria reeled. The musty smell of old books mixed with traces of the perfume that Fred had worn, with a faint tinge of dust and mouldy taco completing the aroma.

She fell back against the wall and slid down it into a sitting position, her shell's emotions churning. Her shell's emotions. Her SHELL'S emotions. She told it to herself over and over, but it didn't help; whether they belonged to her or to her shell, it made no difference now, for she felt them all the same: grief, the shock of her injuries, and a wholly unfamiliar feeling that Illyria despised, but that Fred's memories identified as guilt. There were ghosts in this place. Not human spirits, but the unquiet ghosts of Fred's life, Fred's hopes, Fred's dreams, Fred's memories. She shook her head fiercely. The SHELL, not Fred.

Before her eyes, the walls changed. They were covered in equations, writings, drawings, madness scribbled upon the walls of a new cave, and she huddled there before one small section of wall, fiercely writing the words, over and over, "LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN."

Illyria snapped out of the vision with a jolt. "You will not have me!" she shrieked. "I was the god to a god! I lived seven lives at once! I will not be undone by you!"

FLASH-

She was alone in a dark room, hiding underneath a bed, and her terror magnified every sound, every sensation. From down the hall, she could hear Wesley's voice calling to her, and for a moment, she had to fight the urge to go to him. He wasn't himself. It wasn't safe.

"Fred- I know what you're doing. - What you're up to. - Luring me. Forcing me to find you. - Oh, it's such a dog and pony show. - You beguile me with your girlish ways. I pursue you, but you never give over, do you- No, you just keep laughing and running. Well, guess what, my love - I'm not some downy-faced schoolboy." He was right outside the room now, and he pushed open the door with his axe – the safety chain stopped the door from opening all the way. "I'm a man."

Illyria wanted to stride boldly out to meet him, to strike him down and show her guide his proper place. But she could not control her body. Fred's memories of fear raced through the Ancient's mind, and she snarled impotently.

Wes kicked the door open, and the light of the hallway illuminated Illyria's surroundings. The room was dark and empty, with only a bed, a pile of boards, a stool, and a can of paint to show for decoration.

"You can't come out into the open, can you? No, you hide, you deceive." He walked into the room, the light glinting off the ax held before him. "It's nothing new. It goes all the way back to Eve. You and the serpent plotting behind our backs: 'Here, honey, eat this. It's just an apple.' That's the problem with your sex. You're all weak, and you're all dirty and you won't be satisfied until you've brought each and everyone of us out of the garden and down into the muck with you!"

"Your pathetic species is weak, and dirty," Illyria tried to say, though nothing came out of Fred's mouth. "You won't be satisfied until you've brought each and every one of US down into the muck with you." She began to rant soundlessly, then. "Pathetic, sniveling worms. Your tiny minds bathe in a chemical soup that infects everything you do. I taste it every day, every second, crying and sweating and puking their feelings all over me..." her mental rant was interrupted by Fred's smothered gasp. Wesley had smashed the stool with his axe, breaking it and sending the tools set thereon scattering across the floor.

Wesley picked up the mattress of the bed and flung it against the wall. Peering down at her through the bed frame, she could see the hate glittering in his eyes. "Why do you make me do this?" he asked.

FLASH-

"Would you like to hear my theory, Fred- It's about how stupid you are. I believe that after five years of living in a cave you'll instinctively retreat to small dark places, rather than run outside where you'd be safe."

The floor creaked beneath Wesley's feet as he stalked towards the closet door. "Let's finish this."

He pulled the closet door open violently, only to see in the mirror on the inside of the door that Fred is standing behind him.

"I'm sorry, Wesley," said Fred.

He turned to face her. "You're sorry?"

"You were right about me liking dark places to hide in."

Wes raised his ax and slowly walked towards her.

"But you forgot I also like to build things." Fred pulled on a rope. A fire extinguisher swung free of where it had been placed. It hit Wes full on, knocking him back onto the tarp, and he falls through the weakened floor, landing, unconscious, in the room below.

A savage sense of triumph flooded through Illyria at that sight. Wesley had paid for his presumption in daring to challenge her... her... shell?

FLASH-

Illyria shuddered. Her fever had abated, but she was still very, very weak, her long, blue hair clinging to her sweat-streaked face. "Why did we go there?" she asked desperately. "Why did we think we could beat it? It's evil, Wesley. It's bigger than anything."

Wesley leaned in close. "I don't believe that."

She backed up towards the headboard of her bed, panicked. "Uggh...!" She pointed at Wes, tears sparkling in her eyes. "I'm with him!" She began to cry. "He won't leave me now. We're so close."

Wesley met her panicked gaze. "I will never leave you."

Illyria panted for breath, and then seemed to recover. "That was bad, but it's better now. You won't leave me?"

He kneeled in front of her. "I won't."

"My boys. I walk with heroes. Think about that."

Wesley visibly struggled to hold himself together, but he couldn't quite stop his tears. "You are one."

"Superhero. And this is my power: to not let them take me. Not me."

Wesley sat down beside her and wrapped her up in his embrace. "That's right."

Illyria laced her fingers through his. "That's right. He's with me."

A horrible not-silence hung between them for a moment as Illyria struggled for breath.

"Will you kiss me?" she asked.

Wesley kissed her, tender and passionate in equal measure. After a moment, Illyria pulled away.

"Would you have loved me?"

Wesley nodded. "I've loved you since I've known you. No, that's not—I think maybe even before."

She leaned her forehead against his. "I'm so sorry."

"No," he said tenderly, "no, no."

Illyria choked on her coughs; tears flowing freely down her face. She recovered after a moment, but was not as strong afterwards. "I need you to talk to my parents. They have to know I wasn't scared, that it was quick. That I wasn't scared." She began to convulse. "Oh, God..."

Wesley grabbed her by the arms, looking straight into her eyes. "You have to fight. You don't have to talk, just concentrate on fighting. Just hold on."

Illyria looked into his eyes, and her body quivered uncontrollably. "I'm not scared. I'm not scared. I'm not scared," she insisted, her frightened tone belying her words. After a few moments, her grip softened, and she sank into his arms.

Weakly, she spoke. "Please, Wesley, why can't I stay?"

Her body went still in Wesley's arms.

Wesley looked down at her limp body, sorrow twisting in his heart. "Please..." he said, his voice filled with desperation. He hugged her tightly to himself, and then said, more softly, but filled with no less desperate longing than before, "... please..."

A change began to flow over Illyria's body. Her eyes softened, and the familiar blue streaks began to fade into natural skin. She kicked her body away from Wesley, sending him across the room, and pushing her to the floor.

Wesley watched in horror as Illyria's body convulsed. Watched in horror as the woman he loved more than life itself, died.

The transformation complete, Fred rose to her feet. All too human, she examined her hand, flexing and unflexing her fingers.

"This will do."

FLASH-

Illyria stared wide-eyed into the darkness. It hadn't happened that way. That wasn't the way it had been. These were HER memo... her SHELL'S memories.

They weren't fading.

Maybe it had been a mistake to come here; maybe it had been a mistake to come to a place so rich in the memories of the shell. And yet... and yet... no. She wouldn't be beaten by Winifred Burkle. If to accept these memories was the only way to win, then accept them she would, but she would remain Illyria. She had lived seven lives at once; what was an eighth?

She was weary, moreso than she had ever felt since awakening within this shell. Overcome with exhaustion, and with the majority of her energies devoted to healing her battered shell, she found that she could not this night supersede the human need for rest; barely conscious, the Old One crawled into Fred's old bed, fell fast asleep, and dreamed of Wesley.

* * *

A swarm of military aircraft and ground vehicles had descended upon Los Angeles. Power was out in many areas, but soldiers had set up huge generator powered floodlights in those areas. News media vehicles buzzed around the edge of the quarantine. For all that they couldn't get close, they knew that this was probably the story of the century, and they were determined to cover it. The city was a confusing mass of light and thunder, as Army, Air Force, and Stargate troops found and engaged the enemy.

It was into this city in chaos that the helicopter carrying SG-1 descended, dropping the team off at the base camp that had been established barely a block away from the Hyperion hotel. The power was out here, and the streets were lit with floodlights. In the hours it had taken the Stargate personnel to travel from Colorado to the California coast, the rain had come and gone and come and gone. The stars and the moon shone through holes in the cloud cover, bathing the world below in their light. It was breathtaking, but people paid it little mind; they had other things to deal with.

The 'copter lifted off immediately upon SG-1's disembarkation.

Jack O'Neill had only a moment to take in his surroundings before he was approached by an Air Force officer, one Lieutenant Ryan by name. "Sir! We've been expecting you!"

Jack turned towards the young lieutenant. The man's rank was plainly displayed on his clothing, but his name was nowhere to be seen. "Lieutenant...?"

"Michael Ryan, sir."

"Ryan. Right. So what's the situation, Ryan?"

"We have sealed off most of the Los Angeles basin, grounded all civilian aircraft, and have begun sweeps of the city. Contact has been made with several groups of hostiles with heavy casualties on both sides. The hostiles appear to be highly disorganized, behaving more like looters and pillagers than a military unit, and we have received scattered reports of small groups of teenaged girls fighting against the hostiles, sir."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Teenaged girls?"

"That's what I was told, sir."

"Anything," he paused briefly in between the words, giving his words a slightly sarcastic edge, "else?"

"Yes, sir. We've located where we believe the incursion began. If you'll follow me, Sir." He turned, and led SG-1 up the street towards the Hyperion hotel.

"So what are we looking for?" Carter asked.

And then they rounded the corner. There, peering into the alley beside the Hyperion, Carter and Dr. Jackson stared open-mouthed. Jack and Teal'c took it a bit more stoically, but to those who knew them well, it was clear that they too were shocked by the sheer carnage that they saw before them. Bodies were piled on top of one another from one end of the alley to the other, and although the rain had done much to wash away the blood, the pavement was yet stained with it. Body parts, and strange viscera had been flung everywhere, and the stench of it nearly bowled them over.

But the bodies weren't human. Nor were they super soldiers. Grimly, SG-1 strode into the alley.

Most of the bodies were unrecognizable, from species that none of the Stargate personnel had ever seen before. But some of the corpses they HAD seen before.

Unas.

About a dozen of them, scattered throughout the field of corpses.

And there, at the very end of the alley, surrounded by the inhuman carnage, lay a single dead well dressed African-American male, a home made battle-axe clutched in his hands, and a large sword discarded at his side.

Dr. Jackson reached down and checked the corpse's pockets, coming up with a wallet in which several forms of identification could be found: a California driver's license identified the man as Charles Gunn, while a business card in his pocket proclaimed him an Attorney of Law. He held up the ID and the business card for the inspection of his teammates.

"So, kids," Jack began, "Any ideas?"

"It would appear that this man did battle against the hostile force, O'Neill," said Teal'c.

Daniel spoke next. "There's no way that one man could have killed that many aliens by himself, with just an axe and a sword."

Jack glanced at Daniel. "So you're saying..."

"He had to have had help. And lots of it, by the looks of it."

Carter spoke next. "Do any of the injuries on these aliens look like the result of gunshots?"

The others glanced about. No, the injuries on the aliens were obviously not gun injuries. They were far more consistent with what would be caused by bladed weaponry. Some, however, looked like they had not been so much cut down as torn apart.

Jack raised a speculative eyebrow. "So lawyer boy here gathers an army to take on an alien invasion force, and he is the only human casualty of the battle? Sorry, not buying it."

They left the alleyway behind them, and Jack glanced about. "Ryan, have these buildings been secured?" he asked, gesturing towards the Hyperion and its neighboring buildings.

"We have teams inside the buildings now, sir."

"Ah," Jack said. He opened his mouth to ask another question, but whatever he was about to say was cut off by the sound of gunfire from within the Hyperion. He glanced at his team, and made a hand-signal indicating that they should follow him.

SG-1 moved out.

* * *

"Insolent humans!" Illyria roared as she cast a highly trained black ops trained soldier off the balcony and into the lobby of the hotel. "Such presumption, to think that you could simply walk into MY domain and claim it for your own!" She strode imperiously down the staircase to where the man's squad-mates were waiting with assault rifles in hand.

They opened fire.

If the bullets caused her harm, she showed no sign of it. Snarling, she fell upon in a whirlwind of fists and fury. The Groosalug joined the battle a moment later, coming out of one of the side corridors and, after taking in the situation, he charged into battle with all the abandon of a warrior who is certain that his cause is just.

The soldiers never stood a chance. Within seconds, all of them were either unconscious or otherwise incapacitated.

It didn't occur to Illyria to wonder why she was refraining from killing them.

Yet even as the last man fell, another group of soldiers burst through the front doors of the Hyperion, drawn by the sound of gunfire. Groo took two bullets almost immediately; he was no fool, he knew very well that even the Groosalug could not stand before such weapons. Yet no sooner had he moved to duck under cover than one of the soldiers – a dark skinned man with a golden serpent upon his forehead – produced a small, serpentine weapon and blasted him with a beam of intense blue light.

Groo staggered but did not fall, and the soldier raised a speculative eyebrow before firing again; this time, Groo fell, his consciousness retreating before the pain of the zat gun.

Teal'c turned to face the blue woman, who, in the time it had taken him to deal with the male warrior, had thrown DanielJackson into the far wall, swept Carter's legs out from under her, and was about to lay into Jack when Teal'c opened fire.

The first blast only got Illyria's attention.

She darted towards him, moving almost too quickly for the human eye to perceive; yet Teal'c was unphased. He fired twice more before she reached him, and each shot struck its mark.

The third shot staggered her, but then she was upon him. The last thing Teal'c saw before he lost consciousness was Illyria's cold, metallic blue eyes boring into his own.

Jack opened fire on her, then, this time with his zat. A moment later, Sam joined the effort.

They fired blast after blast of blue energy at the god-king, and in truth, had she been at full strength, it likely would not have been enough. But Illyria, recovered as she was, was not yet fully healed. Finally, after twenty some zat blasts, she sank to her knees, and then fell face first onto the floor.

As the Old One fell, Jack breathed a sigh of relief. "Carter, check on Daniel," he said even as he himself went to see to Teal'c.

Teal'c awoke even as O'Neill bent down to check on him.

"How ya feeling, T?" Jack asked.

"I am unwell, O'Neill." the Jaffa hissed. His breathing sounded labored, and there was already significant discolouration around his left eye where Illyria had struck him. "That woman may have cracked one or more of my ribs."

"Been better, then?"

"Indeed."

"Can you walk?"

Teal'c nodded. "I believe so."

With Jack's help, the Jaffa rose to his feet.

"Daniel's out, sir," Carter called.

Jack nodded. He took a moment to pick up his radio and call for a medevac, and then glanced towards where Lieutenant Ryan was checking on the two hostiles they had taken down. "What about them?"

"They're both alive," said Ryan, his shock plainly evident in his voice. He'd heard about zat guns – one shot hurts, two shots kill, three shots disintegrate. Yet here these two lay, unconscious but alive, after taking multiple zat blasts each.

Jack approached the two fallen hostiles with a speculative look.

"Now what are we going to do with you?" he asked.

End Chapter One

* * *

Feedback is most definitely welcome – particularly constructive criticism. Nothing makes me happier than to know what specifically you (the reader) liked, what you didn't like, and (most importantly) why. 


	3. Big City, Little Old One

"Good and evil we know in the field of this world grow up together almost inseparably; and the knowledge of good is so involved and interwoven with the knowledge of evil, and in so many cunning resemblances hardly to be discerned, that those confused seeds which were imposed on Psyche as an incessant labor to cull out and sort asunder, were not more intermixed. It was from out the rind of one apple tasted, that the knowledge of good and evil, as two twins cleaving together, leaped forth into the world. And perhaps this is that doom which Adam fell into of knowing good and evil, that is to say, of knowing good by evil."

John Milton, Areopagitica

* * *

"Pack 'em up, boys," Jack O'Neill said, with all the satisfaction of a man who had always wanted to say that.

The SGC security teams were quick to follow his order. They loaded Illyria and the Groosalug onto stretchers, placed bindings on their hands and feet, and headed out to the waiting helicopters. Daniel and Teal'c had already been evacuated to a nearby military hospital, but these two... these were their first prisoners. The first they had actually succeeded in taking alive. These were going back to the SGC for interrogation. Possibly dissection. Well, one of those 'tions,' anyways. They were heading to the SGC, and he and Samantha were going with them - new orders from General Hammond.

The cleanup effort here in Los Angeles was not over by a long shot, but between the fact that half of Jack's team was out of commission and that they had gathered enough information to make a preliminary report, it was time to head back to Colorado.

And yet, as he climbed aboard the helicopter, and again as he watched the Hyperion dwindling away below him until it was just another building lining the vast network of streets – just another light among thousands – he couldn't help but feel as though they had barely scratched the surface of what had happened here.

* * *

Epigoni  
by P.H. Wise

An Angel crossover fanfic

Chapter 2 – Big City, Little Old One

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel. I don't own Stargate. Please don't sue me. This story contains spoilers for the final episode of Angel.

* * *

Several hours later, Colonel Jack O'Neill and Major Samantha Carter stood once more before General George Hammond in the briefing room of the SGC. Under other circumstances, Jack might have voiced his distracted puzzlement over why they called it the briefing room when in fact it was used for both briefing and debriefing, but the seriousness of the situation they had just come from rendered that particular train of thought one that would be unwise for him to pursue, lest he start grinning even as they spoke of the disaster that had struck southern California.

"So there was no indication whatever of advanced technology in use by these creatures?" Hammond asked.

Jack shook his head. "No Sir. No big honkin' space guns, no death rays, no nothing." he said. "Of course, Carter's got a theory." He said it as if he were saying 'the sky is blue,' or 'the ocean is wet.'

Major Carter smiled in a bemused fashion. "Thank you, sir." She turned to General Hammond and began her report. "From all reports, the creatures encountered in Los Angeles have no advanced technology, it's true. But they did have physical superiority, and were often immune to small arms fire. They did not operate in a manner consistent with trained troops, but behaved more like looters and pillagers than an organized army. If I had to guess, I'd say that whoever sent these troops has access to significant biotechnology, and engineered the creatures encountered in L.A. as a kind of shock troops, sent in for the purpose of causing panic and spreading terror amongst the populace. Not all of the creatures fit this description, however."

Hammond raised an eyebrow.

"We found several dead Unas among the remains of the other creatures, Sir."

"I see."

"That would seem to indicate that in addition to whatever biogenetically enhanced troops were sent in, there were also a number of conscripts from races demonstrating obvious physical superiority."

General Hammond nodded thoughtfully. "And the two you brought in with you?"

"Doctor Warner is trying to identify exactly what they are now."

"Have they regained consciousness?"

Jack spoke up, then. "Smurfette woke up on the flight over here for as long as it took for a four man squad to zat her back asleep. It took sustained concentrated fire to put her out, sir. More than it took to take her down the first time. We tried giving her some sedatives, and that did exactly squat. He-Man hasn't woken up yet. The sedatives work on him, at least."

The names that Jack had given them did not much impress the General, and although he may have privately thought 'Smurfette' and 'He-Man' amusing nicknames for the prisoners, he would never let it show.

Carter nodded. "She could be adapting to the energies of our zats. Rendering them less and less effective the more often she's exposed to them."

Jack shrugged.

Hammond sighed. He had his suspicions about this situation, and as much as he wanted to believe that it wasn't the sub-terrestrials, all evidence thus far seemed to be pointing that way, with but one important exception: the presence of Unas amongst the fallen enemies. Either way, this was not a good situation; either they had been attacked by a heretofore unknown alien threat with access to highly advanced biotechnology, or the sub-terrestrial world was coming back to bite them all in the ass.

"Sir?" O'Neill asked, seeing the General sigh.

Hammond smiled. "I'm fine. Just a bit tired. It looks like there's nothing to be done until Doctor Warner completes his analysis, and our two prisoners wake up."

"Yes sir."

"Both of you, dismissed."

Jack and Carter left in silence, and the General sank into his comfortable leather chair, his expression a thoughtful one.

* * *

It was nearly an hour later that Jack, Sam, and General Hammond all sat once again around the briefing room table, listening as Doctor Warner – a rather unassuming man, balding, with glasses, and wearing a lab coat over his clothing – delivered his report.

"Quite frankly, I've never seen anything like it," he said, shaking his head in amazement.

His audience waited patiently for him to continue.

Well, OK, perhaps 'patiently' is the wrong word to describe any behavior of Jack O'Neill, but at the very least, he was making an effort not to fidget.

"Even the male has bizarre biological anomalies – I don't have the results of the genetic testing back yet, but if I had to guess, I'd say he is at least half human."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Which half?"

Carter smiled, but the good doctor was not amused.

"I have no idea what the other half of his parentage could possibly be, nor can I say how a member of another species could possibly breed with a human. If I had to guess, I'd say he was created artificially."

"And the woman?" Hammond asked.

"The woman..." Warner shook his head. "That pattern of blue on her skin? That's actually the pigment of her skin. It's the same for her eyes and hair. Genetically, she's 100 human. But she's also got extensive damage to pretty much all of her internal organs. She's got a functional circulatory system and lungs, but that's it. Her organs look like they've been... I don't know - barbequed, maybe. Her heart isn't pumping, but SOMETHING is causing blood to flow. She's got no brainwave activity at all, and there's an absolutely bizarre substance floating around in her blood that I can't even BEGIN to identify.

And that leather catsuit she's wearing? That's biological. It's actually a part of her body, and is she's interacting with it on a level that we can't even begin to comprehend with our current level of technology."

Carter spoke up, then. "If it's part of the body, could the 'catsuit' be what's keeping her alive?"

O'Neill blinked. "Venom?" he said.

Carter and Hammond turned towards him, looking in askance.

"You know, like a snake, except it looks like clothes instead of like a snake that lives in your head?" Left unsaid was the painful source of this particular bit of information – Jack's son, Charlie, had collected comic books before his untimely death.

Warner nodded. "It's possible. Quite frankly, at this point, we don't know ANYTHING about whatever technology is keeping that woman alive. But whatever it is, it's far, far beyond us."

Carter's mind began to race. "What if she was just another normal human before whatever was responsible for the attack in Los Angeles joined her with a kind of symbiote capable of not only controlling her, but also of enhancing her physical abilities far beyond the human norm?"

"Far beyond the human norm?" O'Neill asked.

"You saw the way she moved back at the hotel. She'd taken out an entire squad of highly trained soldiers almost single handedly, and she broke several of Teal'c's ribs with a single blow."

Jack nodded. "You have a point." A thought struck him suddenly. "Say, just where exactly is Smurfette being kept?"

Hammond was the one who answered. "She's being kept in the brig, pending her transfer to a more secure holding facility in Area 51."

Jack got that horrible, sinking feeling.

A moment later, Carter realized what he was getting at, and the implications struck her with the force of a blow to the stomach. "We put someone with nearly superhuman physical abilities in a brig designed to hold human prisoners?" she asked.

Both Doctor Warner and General Hammond went pale.

And several floors below them, in a small, cramped cell of metal and stone, Illyria's metallic blue eyes snapped open.

* * *

"Close all blast doors in and around the area of the brig, and get security to all exits to that area, immediately!" Hammond barked as he strode out of the briefing room and into the control room of the base, with all of its flashing displays, and peculiar beeps, and the distant murmur of human conversation.

His subordinates immediately carried out his orders, and all throughout the base in and around the area of the brig, huge, heavy metal doors slid shut.

But it would take more than metal to stop an enraged Old One.

Several minutes passed.

"Sir!" said Walter – a white haired gate technician wearing glasses and a standard Air Force uniform - staring at the display before him with an alarmed expression, "Blast door 3B has been breached, and the security team dispatched to guard it is not responding on radio!"

"Do we have any idea where the hostile is headed?"

Walter listened to someone speaking on his headset. "Yes, sir. She's been sighted heading for the emergency escape hatch."

Hammond grimaced. "That's what I was afraid of." He glanced at Jack. "We cannot allow an alien combatant as powerful as this to escape into the general population. As of this moment, I am activating the self-destruct mechanism. Jack, I'll need you to punch in your code as well."

Walter swallowed heavily.

O'Neill nodded, and followed the general to the emergency console. Neither of them had punched in more than half of their codes when Walter spoke yet again.

"Sir, the emergency hatch has been opened. She's gone."

That bit of news did nothing to improve Hammond's mood. He quickly cleared his pass-code from the computer, and then rushed to his office, where he picked up his red 'direct to the president' telephone, and waited for the Commander and Chief to pick up.

The President wasn't going to like this news one bit.

* * *

She walked in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies. Yet even in her beauty was she terrible; no mere mortal walked here; she was something other: more awful, more divine, but for all her protestations to the contrary, not less human. Calling upon the human memories of the shell for guidance without even realizing she was doing it, Illyria had followed Norad Rd. to the highway. She now walked along the side of highway 115, moving north towards Colorado Springs. The wide world around her was blanketed in a thick layer of snow, for it was winter, and the air's winter chill stole her every exhalation; she watched them away float in puffs of mist even as she walked with a look of childlike interest. Although Fred had seen winter, she had never seen the snow. Here, now, Illyria could barely take her eyes off it. All around the highway, the trees grew thick and close, each leafless shape standing in vivid contrast with the white snow. Cars passed her by from time to time, their light casting a brilliant glare upon the star-lit snow, and every time they did, she tensed, as if expecting an attack.

An attack that never came.

Even as one part of her mind watched the winter with rapt fascination, another was going over the details of her escape from Stargate Command. She had killed one of the guards put in place to keep her chained there in that cage of metal and stone. The sheer thought of it made her want to snarl; she could scarcely believe the sheer presumption of these humans that they would seek to chain HER. And yet... and yet... that horrible, awful feeling that she had despised even the first time she had felt it simply would not depart from her. Why should an Old One feel guilt? Was she not beyond the scope of these mortals? What power would hold HER accountable that she feared its revenge? Or did she fear revenge at all?

No. Certainly not. She was Illyria, and she feared nothing. And yet that horrible, gnawing feeling of having done something wrong simply would not go away; ever and anon she beheld the face of the soldier that she had killed, dancing before her vision, superimposed upon the winter highway.

Later, she had left highway 125 behind her, and walked now along interstate 25. She resisted the impulse to transform herself into Fred as she approached the city of Colorado Springs. She had been a god to a god – what need had she to disguise herself?

And yet that rationalization did not make the urge to become Fred depart from her. Yet she steadfastly refused to follow that urge.

So it was that those residents of Colorado Springs that were yet out of doors at this late hour, bound up in their winter clothing and determined not to be outdoors for long, beheld a blue haired woman with metallic blue eyes striding imperiously down the city streets, heedless of the bitter cold of winter.

Yet even in the dead of winter, young people yet mingle, and flirt, and drink copious amounts of alcohol in hopes of stripping away their inhibitions and rendering themselves bold. It was not long before Illyria found herself standing before a large building with a sign over it that read, 'The Pelian Spear,' before which a crowd of young people in fashionable attire hid beneath winter clothing was gathered, and from out of which raucous music came tumbling.

Illyria stopped before the building, and following an impulse that she herself did not fully understand, went through the crowd and passed within. The bouncer stopped her at the door; or at least tried to stop her. She paid him more mind that it took to shove him aside, and several teenagers took the opportunity provided to rush inside behind her.

* * *

Within the club, 'The Pelian Spear,' John O'Neill, the teenaged clone of a certain Air Force Colonel, sat utterly alone. Music pulsed all around him, and teenaged and twenty something bodies moved rhythmically (and unrhythmically) to the beat, the pulsing music and the flashing lights creating a kind of hypnotic trance in the club goers even as they danced.

John nursed a soda at the bar, more than a little bit annoyed by the fact that he was still too young to buy his own beer. He was beginning to regret asking Cassie to come with him to this place. He had thought that maybe bringing Cassie to a place like this would get her mind off of her mother's recent death. After all, wasn't going to places like this what teenagers liked to do these days?

He sure as hell didn't know, but that's what he had been told. After almost a year as a teenager, John had come to a very important conclusion: he didn't understand teenagers at all.

Well, maybe Cassie. He thought he could understand her. She was one of the few teenaged friends that he had managed to make after the incident that had left him this way, and that really only because she had been a friend before the incident. He supposed he could have made other teenaged friends, but the thing was, he just didn't find the average teenager all that interesting. In his experience, most of being a teenager these days seemed to consist of angsting and being thoroughly miserable over how your every need was provided for, how you had a nice home to live in, and how your parents were seriously impinging on your social standing with their 'uncool' protective tendencies.

He hadn't much cared for it his first time through, and his second time as a teenager was only made worse by the generational divide. Though he was physically their age, he was most definitely not a member of the same generation as his classmates. And the differences were becoming more obvious every day, compelling him again and again to seek his adult friends.

Jack O'Neill's adult friends.

Janet Fraiser's death had hit him hard as well. For all that he knew he was the clone, and not the real Jack O'Neill, he still cared about his old friends, and still tried to keep in touch with them, even apart from his alienation from most of his peers. Of all of his friends from Stargate Command, he had remained closest to Teal'c, Janet, and the now teenaged Cassie.

But although she had agreed to come with him, Cassie apparently hadn't wanted her mind taken off of her mother's death. Oh, she had tried to enjoy herself at first, and for a few moments, it had looked like she might be able to, and her brilliant smile had made the club almost seem worth it; but now, both she and John were busy being miserable separately.

Damnit, he should have just taken her fishing like he'd originally planned.

He downed his soda in one gulp, paid for it, and glanced about. OK, so he'd find Cassie, and then he'd ask if she wanted to get out of here, they'd get their winter clothing from the club's coatroom, and then he'd take her fishing tomorrow if she was willing to go.

John smiled lazily. That sounded like exactly the thing to do.

That was when a twenty-something woman with blue hair, metallic blue eyes, skin that alternated between the natural Caucasian skin tone and a blue every bit as intense as her eyes, wearing a red leather catsuit, walked past the young man.

His first thought was this: 'Hmmph. Kids these days.'

And then his eyes met hers, for the briefest of moments.

His eyes widened.

Oh shit. Whoever she was, she was NOT human. He was observant enough to be able to see that those weren't contacts she was wearing; and a closer look showed him that the leather gauntlets of her catsuit were streaked with blood that had frozen in the winter cold outside, but was now melting in the warmth of the club.

Immediately, he flipped out his cell phone, and began to dial.

He still knew the phone number for General Hammond's private line; the General had given him the number for just such an eventuality as this one.

General Hammond would want to know about this.

* * *

Illyria quickly decided that this place, for all that it was named after a legendary instrument of war, was tiresome. The smell of arousal was too thick in this place; and mixed with the excitement and adrenalin of those dancing, it nearly overwhelmed her. She quickly made her way to the club's back entrance, on the way her eyes meeting the eyes of a teenaged boy who bore a striking resemblance to a certain Air Force Colonel, and stepped outside.

The door opened into a dark alleyway, sheltered from the snow by an overhang, but not from the cold. Even as the door swung shut behind her, she heard the sound of struggle.

Well, perhaps 'struggle' wasn't entirely the right word.

A vampire had only just seized a pretty teenaged girl with light brown hair and tear-streaked eyes. Her name was Cassandra Fraiser, although Illyria didn't know that. The vampire was male, nothing particularly special; mouse brown hair, brown eyes, and slightly overweight, yet still possessed of the strength of a demon.

As he bit her, she gasped, but did not struggle. For the briefest of moments, there was a look of something like peace on her face.

Illyria watched curiously, ignoring the impulse that told her to kill the vampire and save the girl. It had been a long time since she had watched a vampire kill its victim; perhaps she was overdue for seeing it again.

Yet as she watched, and as the girl grew weaker, the urge to save the girl grew stronger, and at length, she spoke.

"You are dying," she told Cassie.

Cassie's eyes widened slightly at the thought, but she did not struggle.

The vampire gave Illyria an annoyed glance. "Do you mind?" he asked.

Illyria cocked her head in a puzzled manner. "Mind?" she asked. The vampire didn't reply, and since Illyria wasn't interfering, he went back to his meal.

Illyria moved to stand within Cassandra's field of vision, and looked into the girl's eyes.

"Do you want to die?" the Old One asked.

Cassie didn't respond for a long moment, and after a few more seconds of being drained, she found that she no longer had the strength to. No, she didn't want to die. But the weakness of blood loss was upon her, and she couldn't find the strength to respond to Illyria's question beyond the terror that now filled her expression.

The vampire once again turned to Illyria, quite thoroughly annoyed. He punched the old one in the face with all of his vampiric strength. "I don't like it when people talk to my food, bitch!" he hissed.

Illyria didn't so much as budge in the slightest.

Punching the old one was probably the worst move the vampire could have made, for it stirred up Illyria's pride, and she acted to avenge it immediately.

Moving with nearly inhuman speed, she struck the vampire full in the face, sending him flying into the alley wall with such force that the wall of the Pelian Spear cracked visibly around the site of impact. The vampire had not yet recovered from it when Illyria plunged her hand into his body and tore his shriveled, dried up heart from his chest.

She held it there before his disbelieving eyes for a few seconds before crushing it in her hand.

The vampire collapsed into dust.

With her attacker destroyed, Cassie fell to her knees, wracked with great, heaving sobs.

Illyria looked on with an expression of distaste, and yet, mingled with the distaste was the tiniest hint of... was that sympathy? "No matter where I go," she said, "I cannot seem to escape human grief." Her hard expression softened ever so slightly, and a tremor of emotion came into her voice. "So much grief, and still it is like offal in my mouth."

Cassie continued to weep.

Illyria looked down at the weeping girl, and the emotions of the shell were stirred. "Cease your bleating, human," she said, and for all that her words were completely inappropriate her tone was more like Fred than like Illyria, "And I will assist you in locating the ones that spawned you."

Cassie glared murderously at Illyria, but she had not strength enough to act upon the anger that the Old One's comment had stirred in her.

A moment later, John O'Neill burst out of the back door to the club. "Cassie?" he called. He spotted her a moment later. "CASSIE!"

He was at her side in an instant, applying pressure to the injury on her neck. Cassie slumped against him. "What did you do to her!" he demanded of Illyria, his tone commanding.

Illyria did not reply.

Cassie mumbled something incoherent, and began to drift into unconsciousness, her loss of blood finally taking its toll.

"Damnit, Cassie, stay awake!" He slapped her cheeks, and she stirred blearily. Acting quickly, he flipped out his cell phone with his free hand and dialed 911.

By the time he was finished, Illyria had already vanished into the night.

* * *

In the sterile white hospital room, Cassandra Fraiser lay unconscious on the hospital bed. She had received a transfusion, and there was an IV in her arm. The steady beep of the electrocardiogram filled the room.

"How is she?" General Hammond asked as he stepped through the door, with Jack and Sam on his heels.

**beep**

John O'Neill looked up, and instinctively came to attention. "She's not good, sir. She lost a lot of blood. But the doctor said that she'll recover."

**beep**

Hammond nodded, visibly relieved. "What happened out there?" he asked.

**beep**

"I don't know, sir. We went to the club together; we got there at 1900 hours. We danced for a while, and then Cassie became quiet, and went off alone while I was having a drink at the bar."

**beep**

Jack looked at John in askance.

**beep**

"Of soda," John clarified, thoroughly annoyed with the man he had been cloned from.

**beep**

Jack smiled faintly. "Ah."

**beep**

"That was when I saw the woman I reported earlier. I went looking for Cassie, and I found her in the alley behind the club sporting a neck injury, but without any trace of blood on the ground. Smurfette was standing over her. I ran to Cassie, called the paramedics, and by the time I had done that, Smurfette was gone."

**beep**

"Do you think the woman you described could have caused the injury that Cassie suffered?" Hammond asked.

**beep**

John shrugged. "Hell if I know, sir."

**beep**

General Hammond's expression was grim. "We'll get to the bottom of this," he vowed.

* * *

And back in his cell at Stargate Command, the Groosalug awoke with a shudder. He glanced at the steel walls of his cell, noted the guard standing outside the door, visible through a barred window, and sighed. He had learned many human sayings in his time on earth, and one seemed to him particularly appropriate for this situation:

"It appears that I am no longer in Kansas."

* * *

End Chapter Two

Feedback is most definitely welcome – particularly constructive criticism. Nothing makes me happier than to know what specifically you (the reader) liked, what you didn't like, and (most importantly) why.

Author's note: I know little of Colorado Springs itself, save what could be learned by looking at maps. As such, my descriptions of the place are likely inaccurate. If any of you happen to live there and care to correct me, feel free.

Next: Of Snakes and Groosalugs


	4. Of Snakes and Groosalugs

"Who are you?" asked the weary voice of an older man. He suffered from male pattern baldness, but his remaining hair was gray, and his eyes held within them the profound weariness of a man who had seen too much.

Groo turned towards the man who had spoke. He could see no reason to lie to the man. "I am the Groosalug of Pylea."

"Good. Cooperation will make this easier for you, Groosalug. I am going to ask you a series of questions, and I expect you to be entirely truthful." The old man gestured to the machine that Groo had been connected to. "If you should lie, the machine will know."

Groo nodded imperceptibly. He understood his position as prisoner all too well. He had seen the fate of the cows that refused to cooperate with their questioners on Pylea, and he had no wish to meet the same fate at the hands of these earth-cows. And besides, they obviously thought him guilty of something that he had not done. The sooner he dispelled this illusion, the sooner he could move on.

Move on to a world in which he no longer had a place.

Groo forced himself not to sigh.

"Pylea is the name of your world?" the older man asked.

Groo nodded. "It is."

"What are the Stargate coordinates of your world?"

Groo blinked at the unfamiliar word. "Stargate?" he asked.

"Did you arrive her by Stargate?"

Groo shook his head. "I do not know that word."

"The chappa'ai?"

Groo shook his head. "No."

His questioner looked frustrated. "It's a big stone ring, looks like it's full of water when it's turned on?"

"I have never seen such a thing."

"I see. So you came here by ship?"

"It would be a mighty ship indeed that could cross the distance between Earth and Pylea."

The old man struggled to maintain a straight face.

After a moment, Groo smiled faintly. "I did not come by ship, old man. I came to this world by portal."

"But not by Stargate?"

"No."

The older man nodded. "I see. And those that came with you?"

"I came alone."

"What about the woman who was with you?"

"Illyria?" Groo asked. The other man's expression revealed nothing. "She was a native of this world. I knew her once, when her name was Winifred Burkle, but no longer."

That seemed to satisfy the older man, for the time being at least. He disconnected Groo from the za'tarc detector, collected his equipment, and departed.

But even as he opened the cell door and departed, Groo knew that he would be back again later, and with more questions.

There were always more questions.

* * *

Epigoni  
by P.H. Wise

An Angel crossover fanfic

Chapter 3 – Of Snakes and Groosalugs

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel. I don't own Stargate. Please don't sue me. This story contains spoilers for the final episode of Angel. This chapter contains material from the Angel season 3 episode, 'Waiting in the Wings.' I don't own that either.

* * *

"Jacob, I wanted to thank you again for coming on such short notice," said Hammond, smiling as he shook the other man's hand.

Jacob Carter returned the smile. It was now three days after Illyria's escape from Stargate Command. Jacob had come through the gate three hours earlier along with several other Tok'ra in response to the SGC's request for assistance in identifying a heretofore unknown alien species. Although Jacob and the other Tok'ra did not know what species the Groosalug belonged to, they had still been willing to lend their aid in other matters.

"It's not a problem. When we learned what had happened in Los Angeles, of course we were eager to do all that we could." He glanced at his daughter, and there was love in his eyes. "Not to mention, it was an opportunity to come visit home."

They stood in the briefing room of the SGC. Jack and Sam were with them, as was Daniel Jackson, though Teal'c, without the benefit of a symbiote to heal the damage done to his body by Illyria, was absent, still recovering from his injuries.

Major Carter smiled at her father.

"Were you able to get anything out of the prisoner?" Hammond asked as he sank into his chair at the end of the table.

The others were quick to sit.

Jacob nodded. "Quite a bit, actually. He said he was the Groosalug of Pylea, Pylea being his world of origin."

"Groosalug?" Jack asked incredulously. "He-Man was the better name."

Hammond raised a hand. "Jack, please."

Jack grinned. "Ya, sure, you betcha."

"The Groosalug is probably a title, and not his real name," Dr. Jackson surmised.

Jacob continued. "He arrived by portal, but NOT by Stargate. He came alone, which presumably means that he either arrived before the main strike force, perhaps as a scout, or perhaps for some other related purpose, or that he was not connected to the attack, and was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"What about Smurfette?"

Jacob raised an eyebrow, so Jack clarified that statement.

"The woman he was brought in with."

"She's a native of Earth, apparently. Her name is Illyria, and the Groosalug knew her back when she was going by Winifred Burkle, but he claims not to know the new her."

Samantha Carter nodded. "That would seem to go along with my theory that she was altered in some way by these creatures."

"So, Winifred Burkle," Dr. Jackson said, "If she's an Earth native, she probably has family here. Do you think she might try to contact them?"

The others grew thoughtful at that. After a few moments, it was Sam who answered. "It would probably depend on how much of Winifred Burkle is left in this... Illyria, and whether or not it's a true symbiosis, or more of a parasitical relationship."

"But it's possible," Dr. Jackson argued. "We should probably find out where she came from, and put a watch on her family in case she tries to contact them."

General Hammond nodded his agreement. He paused a moment. "The hospital's report on Cassandra Fraiser's injuries indicates that it was probably not Illyria who caused them."

"Do we know what did cause them?" Sam asked.

Hammond nodded. "We do." He smiled grimly. "I put in a few calls. The perpetrators should be brought to justice very soon."

"Either way," said Jacob, "You'll want to keep the Groosalug's presence here under wraps. From everything we could determine with our scanners, although he is not fully human, he is physically superior to humans by a significant degree. He'd make quite a prize to any Goa'uld who managed to get their hands on him, and Niirti was not the only one in search of the Hok'taur."

* * *

Somehow, no matter what efforts are taken by men and women to make it otherwise, it always comes back to a girl. One girl in all the world with the power to stand against the demons, the vampires, and the forces of darkness. One girl to capture the hearts of two vampires, and Immortal, and an Iowa farm boy come super-soldier; one girl who lived, and died, and lived, and died, and lived again. One girl to lose your soul, and one girl to gain it back. One girl dead to call another, that girl dead to call another. There was one girl to challenge the First, and one girl to call forth all of the one girls across the world - one girl to choose them and empower them.

Now there were many where once there had been one.

And now, the one girl who called herself Faith was passing through Colorado Springs.

She was here on account of a couple of recent deaths that had listed 'barbeque fork accident and accidental exsanguination' as the cause of death. Well, that, and because of a phone call from Giles. From the sound of it, a nest had moved into the city, and recently.

For Faith, the sound of it had become a reality shortly after her arrival.

She had always loved the dance of death that was her birthright as Slayer. The thrill of battle. That final gasp. That look of peace. What's it like? Where does it lead you? It was probably not normal for dealing out death to the unholy monsters of the night to make a girl hungry and horny, but Slayers were hardly normal.

And now, in the middle of the nest, surrounded by six angry vampires, with blood singing in her ears and the dust of the seventh vampire still settling on the ground, Faith felt alive.

"What's the matter, boys?" she taunted, twirling a jagged wooden stake in her hands. "Lost your appetite already?"

The vampires charged.

They charged, and she leaped easily into the air, back flipping up and behind them.

The charging vamps collided heavily in the center of the cluttered room.

Hey, nobody ever said they were SMART vampires.

Faith took the opportunity to stake two of them, which swung the odds slightly more in her favor.

Their nest was in an old abandoned warehouse, filled with whatever knicknacks they had brought with them from the remains of their human lives, little reminders of Charlie, Rob, Mark, Jason, Danny, Bill, and John. But the group of friends was gone now, turned by the very same vampire whom Illyria had staked several days earlier; in their place now were demons wearing human faces, and carefully controlled hatred had replaced the friendship that had once existed between them.

Now, one by one, Faith was ending their miserable existences. And it was making her hungry and horny.

Some things never change, it seems.

Inhuman eyes were upon her, she knew. Not necessarily unfriendly eyes, but eyes cold and crystal blue.

Even as she reduced the last vampire to dust and stepped out into the cold Colorado winter night, Faith could sense the thing that watched her from the rooftops. She considered ignoring it, but ignoring things had never been her style. So she climbed easily up the side of the warehouse, using whatever hand holds she could find, and then flipped up to the roof.

Illyria was waiting for her there.

Seeing the other woman's inhumanity, Faith immediately dropped into a fighting stance. "Well, Bluebird, want to get it on, or do you just like to watch?"

Illyria looked at Faith curiously. "Do you lust after me?"

Faith grinned. "After your death, maybe." She suddenly realized how that sounded, and she made a face.

Illyria's look of curiosity turned to one of sudden remembrance. "I remember you. You are Faith, the Vampire Slayer."

Faith raised an eyebrow. "You've heard of m..." she trailed off, suddenly recognizing the woman who stood before her. "Oh shit. Fred? Fred Burkle? Is that you?" Faith did not relax her guard. Last time she had checked, Fred had been human.

"Connor challenged your authority," Illyria mused. "You put him in his place."

"Who?" Faith asked, slightly confused. She didn't remember anyone named Connor. Well, at least not in connection with Fred, Angel, and the others.

Illyria nodded faintly, speaking more to herself than to Faith. "Yes. The false memories. I had forgotten."

Faith frowned. "Last we heard, you were dead. So was Angel, Wesley, Gunn, and Spike. Not really sure how he managed to be not dead after his Sunnydale escapade, but I guess the whole resurrection thing didn't take."

Illyria flinched upon hearing the names of Wesley and Gunn. "Do not speak their names so lightly. They are Champions, fallen in battle with the Circle of the Black Thorn."

Faith nodded. "I heard. Pulled a Samson. Brought the temple down on their own heads." She grimaced. "I KNEW that Angel wouldn't have gone over to evil that easily, but I was outvoted." She looked Illyria up and down. "So what's with the makeover from Hell, Fred?"

"You speak the name of my... " she hesitated ever so slightly, "... shell." She drew herself up proudly. "I am Illyria, and I am as far beyond Winifred Burkle as she was beyond the ant." She looked Faith in the eye. "Do you seek battle, Vampire Slayer?"

Faith narrowed her eyes. "Any time, any where, **Illyria**."

"Then battle you shall have." Illyria's voice became thick with emotion, and she very nearly growled. "Outvoted or not, you will pay for not being there to save Wesley and Charles."

**FLASH**

Fred looked down at the impromptu first aid that she had performed on Gunn's injury. They were in the basement of the dance hall; or at least it should have been a basement. The magic of the enchanted dance had transformed it into a corridor that stretched infinitely out in both directions, and every inch of infinity filled with the most lavish furniture, clothing, and decoration.

"That's good," Gunn said. "That should hold." (Fred lets out a shaky breath) You okay? You hurt?"

Fred let out a shaky breath.

"You okay?" Gunn asked. "You hurt?"

"I'm fine. I just thought..." she took a deep breath and looked away. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't fall apart like this."

Charles Gunn smiled slightly. "You scared I'm gonna die on you?"

That obviously upset her. "Charles, don't even..."

Gunn looked up at the ceiling, and spoke dramatically. "And all I ask is one last kiss, as the light is dimming." He laughed.

"You think that's funny?" Fred asked, horrified at the thought.

"Fred, it's just a scratch."

"I thought it was... I..."

"Hey," he reached out and pulled Fred in close. "Hey." He stroked her shoulder, and then looked into her eyes. "You really that worried about me?"

Fred didn't look at him. "You probably think I'm an idiot."

Gunn spoke quietly. "I think if you care that much, the wound is definitely deep."

Fred's eyes met with his, and she spoke softly. "The light is dimming?"

Gunn looked at her lips. "And all I ask," he slowly leaned forward, "Is one last..."

They kissed gently, and yet full of passionate gentleness, and for a moment, all the troubles of the world melted away.

**FLASH**

Illyria's fist collided heavily with Faith's face, and the dark slayer staggered back, but quickly recovered, grinning widely.

"Now that's what I'm talkin' about. Let's dance, Bluebird."

* * *

Deep within Cheyenne Mountain, a presence stalked unseen. It watched, waiting, hoping for the chance to get at his target; waiting for a chance to be alone with the prisoner. Even as Generals and leaders made decisions that directly impacted the survival of the Earth, the unseen presence descended upon the brig.

Joe Marsters, a young private assigned to guard duty, peered carefully about, wary for any sign of an intruder.

It didn't help.

Though he looked directly at the Goa'uld infiltrator, he did not see him.

The last thing Joe saw before his death and the subsequent disintegration of his body was a flash of blue light; the last thing he heard was the telltale sound of a zat blast.

The air shimmered around the black clad form of the Goa'uld infiltrator as he opened the door to Groo's cell.

The prisoner was asleep.

Good.

Carefully, he removed his stealth suit and placed it close by so that he could quickly put it on once he had taken Groo as his host. He knelt down over the sleeping Groosalug, and prepared to leave his current host.

Just as the Goa'uld symbiote had left its human host, Groo sprung into action; for although he had never encountered a Goa'uld before, he was quite familiar with parasitic demons, and well he wist how to deal with them. He caught the Goa'uld in midair, rose to his feet, and crushed it in his hand before throwing its broken body to the cold floor of the cell.

Groo glanced at the door. It was still open. He turned towards the discarded Goa'uld stealth suit with a thoughtful look.

* * *

"Sir, the prisoner has escaped."

"WHAT?" Hammond thundered, his face nearly purple with anger.

The soldier reporting to him flinched, but went on. "There's no sign of Private Marsters, sir, and we found one of the Tok'ra delegation lying dead on the floor of the cell, with the symbiote, also dead, not far away. It looked like it had been snapped nearly in half, sir."

"Care to explain?" Hammond asked, turning towards Jacob Carter.

Jacob was at a loss. "I wish that I could, George. And Selmac is as shocked as I am. The only reason I can think of that a symbiote would leave the body would be to take a new host, but no Tok'ra would ever do such a thing without the new host's consen..." he trailed off.

"I think you may have been infiltrated, Jacob."

Jacob nodded, a horrified look on his face. "I'll check and see who's missing. It shouldn't take long."

"I'll have to call the president. Two prisoners lost in less than a week." Hammond shook his head disbelievingly. "He is NOT going to be pleased."

"George, it might be a bit early for that. We don't actually know what happened to the prisoner yet. He's out of his cell, but if no sightings of him have been reported by the guards, chances are, he's hiding somewhere in the base."

Hammond nodded. "True."

"If one of mine was a Goa'uld spy, then we'll take full responsibility for losing the prisoner. You shouldn't get it TOO much hot water over this." Jacob smiled faintly. "And look on the bright side – at least he wasn't taken by the Goa'uld."

Hammond nodded wearily. "Thank you, Jacob."

* * *

Illyria and Faith fought furiously on the rooftop of the abandoned warehouse, striking one another with everything that they had. Ordinarily, Illyria might have tried to dodge, but such was her rage that she could barely bring herself to block; nearly every bit of her effort was directed towards the end of causing Faith injury. And Faith had never been much of a dodge-and-avoid type to begin with.

Snow drifted gently down from darkened clouds, settling on the metal roof all around them.

Even as they fought, Illyria's rage grew ever greater. This was what she was reduced to: little better than a vampire slayer. She, who had once been god to a god, who had survived for five years in a place where her kind were butchered like... no, not her memory. Not her memory. The shell's memory.

Her momentary distraction allowed Faith to get in a few solid blows, and Illyria staggered, but did not fall. They fought on, and the old one's anger grew ever stronger, and with it, a profound sense of betrayal. It wasn't her own sense of betrayal. She herself had never been betrayed by Faith. And yet, as her human emotions waxed, the barrier between her own memories and the shell's waned.

Faith blocked what would have been a brutal haymaker with her forearm, only to receive a kick to the face that sent her tumbling. She recovered from the fall just in time to avoid taking another brutal blow to the face. Quickly gathering her wits about her, the Slayer blocked yet another blow before going on the offensive. She unleashed with a devastating combination of punches and kicks. Some landed, some didn't.

Illyria let loose with another powerful punch, but Faith caught the old one by the wrist and flung her over her shoulder and onto the far side of the building's cold metal roof.

"You weren't THERE," Illyria hissed, her fury driving her ever onward. Blows rained down on both sides. They were fairly evenly matched, the Slayer and the Old One bound in human flesh.

"I know," said Faith. "But I wanted to be."

"Angel told me all about what happened with you," Illyria sad, breathing heavily now more on account of her emotional state than anything else. It did not occur to her to distinguish the shell's memories from her own. "How he refused to give up on you even when everyone else did. When even Wesley did."

Faith leaped up and over Illyria, landed behind her, and kicked her solidly in the back.

Illyria slid across the metal roof for about a dozen feet before coming to a stop, still standing, still furious. "You abandoned the man who refused to give up on you, Slayer."

Faith had grace enough to look guilty, yet mixed with the guilt was shock and surprise. "Fred?" she asked. Faith's thoughts went racing. She hadn't known Fred particularly well, but she'd known that the slender Texan had been a Champion, and for that reason alone she felt that should have gone to help when Fred had needed it.

Something snapped inside Illyria, then. The air rippled around her as she regained access to the smallest portion of her old power over time, and with it came the song of the green, great and glorious, all around her. It wasn't much, but it did mean that Faith was moving just ever so slightly less quickly as compared to Illyria.

It was enough.

Blow after blow rained down upon Faith, and Illyria spoke in Fred's voice, "If you and those other Slayers had only trusted Angel, if you'd been there, then I wouldn't have DIED!"

Faith fell beneath her onslaught. Yet still the Old One rained down blows upon Faith's prone form.

The Dark Slayer lifted her head, her face battered and bloody. She knew that she couldn't take much more of this. She'd always wondered what death would be like, but she'd never thought that it would happen like this.

But at the last possible moment, Illyria stopped short. As if coming from far away, she heard Wesley's voice. "If I were to help you find your way... you have to learn to change. You mustn't kill."

Illyria sank to her knees, tears in her unnatural, crystal blue eyes.

Faith looked at the other woman for a long moment, and her compassion was stirred within her. She saw in Illyria a reflection of herself on another night, long ago, with rain pouring down all around her, and Angel holding her, whispering that he was there, and it would be ok. She sat up, and gathered the Old One up into a crushing hug, Faith's brown hair mingling with the blue and brown strands of Illyria's, and the snow drifting gently down all around them.

"I'm sorry," Faith whispered, again and again. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry..." her voice cracked with emotion. "I'm so sorry, Fred."

And Illyria wept, the memories of the shell sweeping up all around her. The tide of memory that she had been keeping at bay ever since Fred's unaltered memories had been restored when Wesley had crushed the Orlon Window came rushing over her, every memory bathed in emotion, and she quailed before it.

**Home.**

**Mom. Dad.**

**Pylea.**

**Handsome man saves me from the monsters.**

**Returning to Earth.**

**Mom. Dad.**

**Wesley.**

**Charles.**

**Love.**

**Connor.**

**Angel, Cordy, Lorne, Wesley, Charles, her family.**

**Holtz.**

**Connor's return.**

**Angel's disappearance.**

**The summer spent with Charles and Connor.**

**The Beast.**

**Angelus.**

**Faith.**

**Cordelia.**

**Jasmine.**

**Wolfram and Hart.**

**Knox.**

**Wesley.**

**Spike.**

**Eve.**

**Harmony.**

**Lindsey.**

**Wesley.**

**Love.**

**The sarcophagus.**

**Wasting away.**

**Dying in Wesley's arms.**

**Illyria.**

**The long slumber.**

**The betrayal at the hands of her trusted advisors.**

**Opaline towers, and seas that rippled with insensate lust.**

**Her rule as an old one.**

**Fred.**

**Charles.**

**Wesley.**

**Awakening in a human body.**

**Wesley's death.**

"My worlds are gone," she managed to say. "Long gone."

Memories of Fred's life and memories of Illyria's life bled together until she could no longer distinguish the difference between the two. Illyria had once boasted of living seven lives at once; now there was an eighth. And through it all, even in the happy memories of love and of hope, was grief: the possibility that at any moment all of this might be snatched away. As it had, in fact, been.

Gone in the split second that it took to be betrayed by those closest to her.

Gone in the split second that it had taken to inhale a breath of mummy dust.

Illyria shuddered like a leaf in a gale. "Wesley, why can't I stay?" she asked in a small voice, sobbing so hard that she could barely speak.

And the snow fell gently around her.

And the Dark Slayer held her awkwardly but as comfortingly as she could, unsure of what, exactly, she was supposed to do with this broken hearted Old One.

* * *

End Episode 3

Feedback is most definitely welcome – particularly constructive criticism. Nothing makes me happier than to know what specifically you (the reader) liked, what you didn't like, and (most importantly) why.

Next: The Late Great Winifred


	5. The Late Great Winifred

Epigoni  
by P.H. Wise

An Angel crossover fanfic

Chapter 4 – The Late Great Winifred

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel. I don't own Stargate. Please don't sue me. This story contains spoilers for the final episode of Angel.

* * *

_I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;  
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;  
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways  
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears  
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.  
Up vistaed hopes I sped;  
And shot, precipitated,  
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,  
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.  
But with unhurrying chase,  
And unperturbèd pace,  
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,  
They beat and a voice beat  
More instant than the Feet  
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.  
Strange, piteous, futile thing."_

_

* * *

_

from 'The Hound of Heaven,' by Francis Thompson

Illyria, whom last we saw bound up in Faith's ungently strong embrace stood now upon a grassy knoll alike in character to the far side of that Pylean gate through which Angel, Wesley, Gunn and Lorne had passed in search of their lost Seer; a sense of peace hung all around, as sunshine filtered through the branches of the nearby trees alighting scattered and broken upon the ground in ever shifting patterns of light and shadow, warmth and cold.

No sooner had she recognized the place on which she stood than another appeared at her side; soulful brown eyes and gently waving hair announced the woman far better than any trumpets or heraldry. For Winifred had come, and now before Illyria stood with an accusing look and anger in her countenance.

The god-king laughed, and striding forward thrust her hand, each finger curled and held rigid in ungentle hooks, into the soft flesh of the all too human Winifred. And though her hand clenched round Fred's human heart, and blood spilled forth, the pain of it was not Fred's, but her own. A shock of agony went through her, and she looked down and marveled at the sight that met her eyes; no mark found its place on Fred, and no bloodstain, but upon Illyria's chest sat now a horrible, gaping wound from whence issued her life's blood in a great torrent.

Fred raised an eyebrow.

Her eyes wide, and clutching at her wound, Illyria fled.

She fled her down those labyrinthine passages of her ancient mind. Yet ever and anon was she pursued, the great Old One by the human shell. Under other circumstances, she might have laughed, and then turned to casually disembowel the presumptuous human who dared pursue her. Yet she had tried that here already. It hadn't worked. And when she had struck Fred, she herself had felt the pain.

She hid beneath glaciers that rippled with insensate lust. She took shelter in opaline towers as high as small moons. Yet not even smoke and half-truths, nor torment and unnamable beauty could shelter her here. Illyria fled, and Fred followed.

They raced across the stony paths Fred's memory of a family trip to the Grand Canyon, over all of the bumps and shatterings of Fred's ill-fated relationships, and even into Illyria's greatest triumphs. Yet even there, with all the world bowing before her, with gods falling down in abject worship of her greatness, Winifred Burkle was close behind.

"I wear the cheese!" a peculiar little man, with slices of cheese spread out across his face, called as she passed him, "The cheese doesn't wear me!"

Pylea stretched out before her, and the cave, and the second cave, and even unto Fred's death. It did no good.

Panting and weary, Illyria found herself once more upon the cold metal roof of the abandoned warehouse in Colorado Springs to which she had followed the Slayer.

Winifred Burkle was waiting for her.

"You will not escape me," Fred intoned, her voice cold and pitiless as the frozen south, where many ruined cities of the old ones yet lay buried beneath the polar ice. For all that the image before Illyria looked like Fred, it wasn't her.

Illyria met Fred's gaze as best she could. It took her several moments to gather up courage enough to speak. "Are you Winifred Burkle?" she asked in a defeated voice. "Is this my punishment for destroying you? To be haunted by your pathetic spectre until the end of time?"

Fred arched an eyebrow. "Am I Winifred Burkle?" she asked. She laughed, but there was no warmth in it. "No. That would be you. Perhaps."

Illyria's puzzlement very nearly overwhelmed her fear of the figure before her. "What?"

"Do not make the same mistaken assumptions that your human friends made."

Illyria narrowed her eyes. "Winifred Burkle is dead," she said, but her tone was almost pleading. "Her soul was consumed by the fires of my resurrection."

Fred nodded. "Yes."

"You speak in riddles." She shoved down the horrible sense of vulnerability that she felt and glared at Fred, hiding once again behind the image of the invincible god-king. "Bleat at me no longer, phantom. You are dead, and this shell is mine."

But Fred only laughed again. "Why do you insist on making the same mistaken assumptions that your human friends made? Answer me this. You have the memories of a scientist. When something is consumed, what happens to it?"

"It becomes a part of the creature that consumed it. The nutrients are drawn out and put to use, and the waste is expelled."

"Yes."

"I do not see how this related to the subject at hand."

Fred nodded patiently. "You will. Consider this: the soul of Winifred Burkle was destroyed, yes, but only in the sense that it ceased to exist as Winifred Burkle."

And all of Illyria's defensiveness and anger fell away. She spoke, then, and her voice was soft, and full of vulnerability. "What do you mean?"

"Old Ones don't have souls, Illyria."

Shock washed over Illyria like a lightning storm. Her mouth went dry, and she found that she could not stop swallowing. "What?

"You heard me."

"I am not Winifred Burkle."

Fred shrugged. "You could be. That choice is one of the possibilities open to you, certainly."

Illyria sank to her knees, no longer able to contain her shock at this pronouncement.

"You need to decide what you're going to do with your new life, Illyria."

Illyria shook her head. "I've nowhere to go. My kingdom is dead." She spoke softly. "Long dead. There's so much I don't understand. I've become overwhelmed. I'm unsure of my place."

"Yes."

Illyria was silent for a few moments. And then she asked the only question that could be asked: "How?" It came out in a near whisper.

Fred's icy manner evaporated, and it was as though night had become glorious day. A light seemed to grow around her, growing ever brighter until it burned like the sun... and somewhere in that light, she smiled.

* * *

Illyria awoke with a start. It was dark, but she was not alone. She was lying in an uncomfortable bed that squeaked when she moved. She sat up and looked about. On a small dresser next to the bed lay a clock displaying, "4:00 AM" in red. She was in a cheap hotel room, and her companion's gentle breathing was the only sound. 

Her companion – Faith – lay sleeping on a foldout bed immediately to the right of Illyria's bed, with blankets pulled up comfortably around her, concealing her nudity from Illyria's view.

She looked down. She had reverted to the Burkle persona at some point during the night, and her armor had modulated itself accordingly. It now appeared as a set of comfortable pajamas with a cartoon bunny rabbit design. The little rabbits reminded her of Feigenbaum, and for a moment, she wondered what ever had become of the master of chaos. He'd been in her dorm room at UCLA before she'd been sucked into Pylea, but he hadn't seen him since then... Illyria shook her head faintly. Her second experience of sleep since her resurrection had obviously affected her mind. She could only hope that she would recover whatever damage had been done. She didn't normally need to sleep, for Fred's brain had been liquefied by her resurrection; she had no brain that needed rest.

She was becoming distracted again. She frowned, sat up in bed, and turned to consider the slumbering Slayer.

Faith.

Why would she have brought her here, to her hotel room?

Illyria did not understand.

Fred would have. Fred... to find her place... the god-king grew thoughtful. Fred's parents might understand. But it would break their hearts to learn it. She hadn't wanted to see them weep before, and she wanted it even less now.

"Is there anything in this life but grief?" she mused quietly.

As if coming from a great distance, Wesley's voice answered her. "There's love. There's hope... for some. There's hope that you'll find something worthy... that your life will lead you to some joy... that after everything, you can still be surprised."

Illyria's eyes widened. "Wesley?" she asked, searching about for the source of his voice.

"Wha...?" Faith asked, sitting up in bed. She glanced at Illyria, then at the clock. She groaned. "It's too early for this." And without another word, the dark slayer put a pillow over her own head to muffle any further noises, and went back to sleep.

She shifted out of the Burkle persona.

No. Wesley could not have spoken.

Wesley was dead, and the dead do not speak.

* * *

Groo grimaced. 

Pylean warriors were trained for endurance, it was true, but this was getting him nowhere. He had been hiding in an out of the way supply closet for almost four hours now, and still it was not safe to leave. Still he heard the regular footfalls of guards pacing up and down the hallway outside. He had thought that the clothing he had taken from the parasite's host would have proved an effective disguise.

No such luck. The first guard to come across him had immediately raised his rifle. Groo had quickly disarmed the man and rendered him unconscious, and now said guard was bound and gagged in a storage room down the hall. That had been five hours ago.

He supposed that this... whatever it was would go into an uproar once the guard was discovered, and before that happened, he needed to get out of here.

There was a strange device attached to the clothing that he now wore. As for the clothing itself, it was ill fitting, pinched him in uncomfortable places, and he suspected that it was giving him a rash on his arms.

Not for the first time, he studied the little keypad device that hung on the wrist of the clothing he had taken. This was getting him nowhere, and he needed to do SOMETHING. So... he began tapping random keys on the keypad.

At first it was just to amuse himself. But then, about an hour into it, just as he had finished typing in yet another combination of keys, the keypad vanished, as did the wrist it was connected to.

To say that Groo was surprised by this development was quite an understatement. Only his long years of training as a warrior prevented him from jumping several feet into the air (a move which would have been very bad in the enclosed confines of a supply closet). When he had recovered from his surprise, he realized that it wasn't just the keypad and his hand to the wrist: his entire body had disappeared. He felt his cheeks and nose to make sure they were still there. Then he patted down his chest and legs. OK. So he wasn't incorporeal. Just invisible.

The Groosalug smiled. He could deal with invisible.

He opened the door of the supply closet and stepped out into the open.

* * *

When Faith finally awoke, she found Illyria standing at her bedside, watching her with a vaguely interested look. She looked up at Illyria. And then she did a double take, and sat up with a start, the blankets falling off of her and exposing her nudity as she did so. 

"Jeez, Blue, were you tryin' to take years off my life?" she asked grumpily.

Illyria tilted her head slightly, her movements still strange lizard-like for all that she had regained Fred's memories. "No. I only wanted to see how long you would continue. You lay there for hours making noise with your nose."

Faith climbed out of bed and glared at Illyria as she quickly headed for the shower. "I don't snore."

Illyria smiled ever so faintly.

Faith said nothing; the significance of Illyria's joke making was lost on her. As she turned on the hot water and stepped into the stream, she grew thoughtful. In truth, she wasn't really sure what she was supposed to do with this... thing. Illyria. Being in this situation made her angry. She wasn't the one who should be doing this. ANGEL should be the one doing this.

But Angel was dead.

And that made her angry. She was angry with Angel for dying, with herself for not being there to help him, but most of all, with the Scoobies for, as she saw it, abandoning Angel when he'd needed them most.

She hadn't fully recovered from the injuries that Illyria had inflicted upon her. For all that the Scythe's energies unleashed by Willow at the Hellmouth had increased her powers, after that fight with Illyria, Faith felt as though she had gone several rounds with the Beast. She took a few minutes to get clean, and then shut off the shower, dried her hair, brushed it, put on her makeup, and got dressed.

Illyria was still waiting for her when she stepped out of the bathroom.

"You hungry, Bluebird?" Faith asked as she grabbed an apple from the room's refrigerator.

"I do not require sustenance as you do," Illyria said.

"Bitchin'," Faith replied. "That'd have to be useful. But don't you miss food, sometimes?"

Illyria's expression softened ever so slightly. "Only very recently." Only since she had regained Fred's memories, and among them, memories of the taste of food.

"Can you eat, though? I mean, if you wanted to?"

"I have never tried."

"Huh."

Once more, that sense of awkwardness washed over Faith. Angel should be the one here doing this. He knew Fred. He knew Illyria. She'd met Fred, but she'd hardly been friends with the woman, and now here was this creature that may or may not be Fred... what the hell was she supposed to do with Illyria?

"Got any plans?" Faith asked.

Illyria nodded. "I have been ruminating on that question for most of the morning. I believe I should go south, to Texas, and meet my shel... Winifred's parents."

Faith winced. Sure, that's what every parent wanted showing up on their doorstep: the thing that killed their daughter. Well, she wasn't entirely sure about the Fred being dead thing. She'd seen no small part of Fred in this creature... whatever. "That's probably not the best idea. Most parents don't react too well to learning that their daughter is dead. Look, I'll tell ya what, Bluebird. I'm heading off to St. Louis to deal with some old French vampire who thinks he can run the city. You could come along. Carnage, mayhem, you could really get your ughh on. What do you say?"

Illyria shook her head, and it seemed shockingly human for one whose movements were typically inhuman. "The intricacies of Saint Louis are meaningless to me. I MUST visit Winifred Burkle's parents. If I am to find my place in the world and begin a new chapter in my existence, then I must first end the previous chapter, one way or another."

Faith shrugged. "Hey, I'm five by five either way."

Illyria nodded. "Then we are agreed." She turned to go.

As Illyria opened the door to the motel room, Faith couldn't help but feel a wave of relief. She hadn't wanted to bring Illyria along, but had felt obligated to do so anyways. Still, she couldn't help but feel sorry for Fred's parents. She didn't envy them what they were about to go through.

Just as she was about to step out the door, the Old One turned, and looked back. "Faith," she called.

Faith looked up.

"Thank you."

Faith smiled, and then rubbed her aching jaw. Damn but that girl had packed a mean punch.

* * *

The Groosalug stalked silently through the halls of the SGC, ever in search of some way to escape from the mountain. The guard that he had tied up had yet to be found, but every moment he was stuck here, he knew his time was growing shorter. And yet, much to his increasing vexation, he simply could not locate the exit. He wandered corridor after corridor, checked door after door, and none of them led to the way out. 

To make things worse, he was growing very, very hungry. They had not fed him in the time he had been a prisoner here (which, he suspected was more due to their not knowing what kinds of food he could eat than anything else). He had not eaten since that fateful night in Los Angeles when he had discovered, much to his horror, that he had arrived too late.

Too late.

That he had missed the great battle of his time.

That those who controlled the Wolf the Ram and the Heart on Earth had been completely destroyed, and he hadn't been there. Hadn't been able to avenge Cordelia, and had not been able to fight at Angel's side.

Yet once more, self-pity threatened to swallow him, and likely would have, had he not at that moment scented the smell of roasting meat coming from down the hall. He sniffed. Yes, that was definitely some sort of meat.

He turned and followed his nose.

* * *

Jack O'Neill sat in the SGC cafeteria, enjoying a bowl of red jello in the company of Teal'c. Things had been very chaotic lately in the wake of that human Goa'uld fiasco, and between that, and the events in Los Angeles, AND with the new President about to be sworn in, they were soon going to discover whether or not they'd be keeping their jobs. But those were things to worry about after dinner. Here, now, all he had to worry about was Teal'c blasphemous embracing of those damned newfangled Star Wars movies. 

"You're killing me, Teal'c. You are killing me."

Teal'c gave Jack a speculative look. "In what way have I caused you harm, O'Neill?"

"How can you POSSIBLY like the new Star Wars movies just as well as the old ones?"

"They are tales of grand adventure, and triumph over adversity."

"Yeah, but they're not the old ones!"

Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "I was not aware that the value of a movie was directly proportional to its age, O'Neill."

"I didn't say that!" Jack insisted. "It's just... ok, look, Teal'c. The new ones aren't anywhere NEAR as good as the old ones. That's just the way it is!"

"I disagree."

Jack took an indignant bite of his jello.

As they argued, over on the counter where the food was laid out, a small bit of red jello floated up off its bowl and disappeared.

"What are we arguing about?" asked Daniel Jackson as he strode in through the doors of the cafeteria.

Teal'c and Jack turned to face him questioningly.

Daniel shrugged. "I could hear you yelling from down the hall, but I couldn't make out what you were saying," he offered by way of explanation.

"Teal'c here is under the DELUSION that the new Star Wars movies are just as good as the old ones."

Daniel blinked. "Actually, I like the new ones as..."

Jack cut him off. "See? Daniel agrees with me."

"Um, actually, Jack..."

"Aht!" Jack said, holding up a finger.

"I..." Daniel began again.

"AHT!" Jack insisted, cutting him off once more, finger upraised.

Daniel sighed. "Yes, Jack. I agree with you wholeheartedly."

Jack smiled smugly. "See? Daniel agrees with me."

Teal'c was nonplussed.

It was then that two bowls of jello and a plate full of fried chicken floated past their table.

Jack, Teal'c, and Daniel turned and stared at the floating food as it made its way towards the door, and then exchanged nonplused glances once it was gone.

"That's... odd," said Jack.

"Indeed," Teal'c replied.

* * *

Now, with access to Fred's full memories of life as a human, Illyria realized that there was an easier way to get to Texas than walking. Unfortunately, it meant being in a small, enclosed space for several hours. But this was important enough that she was willing to brave even the terror of the enclosed space if it would get her where she wanted to go. So she'd tracked down one of the more hostile local demons, killed him, and taken his money, which she'd used to pay for a bus ticket. 

Now, using her Burkle disguise, she was on her way home.

Or at least, on her way to Fred's home.

As the winter landscape rolled away outside the windows of the bus, she tried to distract herself from the strangling feeling of being in such a tiny space by attempting to figure out what, exactly, she was going to tell them.

It didn't help.

Her fingers clenched around the headrest of the seat in front of her, and very soon, had dug deep furrows therein.

Time passed, and soon, she had left the mountains behind her. The snow faded into the rainy Texan landscape. It wasn't usually rainy here, she knew, but that was irrelevant. What WAS relevant was the walls closing in aroun... no, what was relevant was that she would soon be meeting with those same people that she had deceived not a month before.

Fred's mother – Trish - had sensed that something was wrong. That she seemed different, somehow. Roger had passed it off as their little girl growing up.

Illyria shook her head. Well, she had. She'd died and grown up into a great big, scary Old One.

All too soon, she reached the journey's end.

She was glad to be off the bus, but not so glad to be within walking distance of the home that Fred had left behind so long ago.

She walked down the old muddy country road. It was quite a contrast from the last time that Fred had been here; the sky had been blue and clear, then, and the world had been considerably brighter.

And much less complicated.

The old neighborhood hadn't changed much. The Newmans – the Burkles' closest neighbors – had repainted their house, but they still had the same old whitewashed fence out front. Children played in their yard. Fred had once had a crush on Bobby Newman, and briefly, Illyria wondered if those were his spawn playing in the rain, flinging balls of mud at one another and laughing delightedly. A new generation of humans loosed upon the earth. But she would have no part of that. Her reproductive organs had been liquified right along with most of her other internal organs, and all of her spawn from her days as the ancient god-king were long dead, although occasionally she saw a human with some deformity that reminded her of them.

They were irrelevant. Certainly, she hadn't loved them. Old Ones didn't love.

She wasn't a typical old one anymore, though. Fred had always thought that it was a little strange that Spike and Angel were always calling themselves Vampires With Souls, as if it were all one term, but here she was, in almost exactly the same position as they, and now, Illyria understood.

She was an Old One with a soul.

The very idea was repellant to her. Old Ones did not HAVE souls. Old Ones tore apart the lesser, ensouled creatures and watched them bleat out their pathetic pleas for mercy for the sake of their own amusement. Old Ones shattered sanity. Old Ones destroyed souls, severing them forever from the both the possibilities of salvation and of damnation, casting everything that makes a person who they are into the great screaming abyss of Oblivion.

Yet SHE had a soul. It burned like a fire in her belly, drawing her back, making her human, and compelling her onwards.

She kept on through the pouring rain, and suddenly, there it was. A little faded, but still painted yellow and white, with fruit trees growing in the yard, and smoke rising from the chimney.

Home.

It struck Illyria with an unexpected kind of forcefulness. As an Old One, she had never known such concepts, yet her human body provided her with a wealth of emotion and memory at the thought. Warmth on a cold night. Playing out in the yard with Bobby Newman and his friends. Her mother picking her up and holding her close after she'd fallen and skinned her knee. Gathering round the table at Christmas and Thanksgiving, surrounded by loving relatives. Trust. Life. Love.

So it was that Illyria, dressed in her Burkle persona, walked up to the door of the Burkle home.

She'd intended to transform back to normal at this point, but now that it came down to it, she found that she couldn't bring herself to do so. Soaking wet, she raised her hand, and knocked twice on the door.

The sound of her knocking was like the stroke of doom.

Roger Burkle answered the door.

Father.

Dad.

Daddy.

Memories of his warmth and his strength, always there for her, always loving, always supportive, rose in her mind unbidden.

Roger's eyes widened at the sight of his daughter standing on the doorway looking like nothing so much as a drowned rat. "Fred?" he asked in surprise.

"Hi daddy," she whispered.

End Chapter 4

* * *

Feedback is most definitely welcome – particularly constructive criticism. Nothing makes me happier than to know what specifically you (the reader) liked, what you didn't like, and (most importantly) why.

Next: The Importance of Being Doyle

Author's notes:  
Anyone who can correctly guess who it was in Illyria's dream gets a cookie.

Revision: Fixed the name of Fred's father. Had accidently written 'George' instead of 'Roger.'


	6. The Importance of Being Doyle

Roger Burkle's eyes widened at the sight of his daughter standing on the doorway looking like nothing so much as a drowned rat. "Fred?" he asked in surprise.

"Hi daddy," she whispered.

A thousand different thoughts went through Roger's mind. Why was she here? How had she survived? Why show up like this, suddenly, without warning? Why not send some word? But for all that his thoughts were racing, he didn't hesitate for a moment, but immediately hugged his daughter for all that he was worth. "Fred!" he exclaimed.

His wife, Trish, called from where she was tending the fire in the living room, "Roger? Who's at the door?"

Trish poked her head around the corner, and a moment later, she too rushed over to Fred and embraced her. "Fred, honey, what happened?" she asked, deliriously happy to have her daughter home safe and sound, but still in that state of disbelief, where unexpected good fortune yet seems too good to be true.

"Mom!" Fred exclaimed, and began to cry.

They stood there for a moment, united once more as a family. For that one moment, it was perfect.

Roger blinked in surprise. "Here we are, standing in the doorway while you're soaked to the bone!" he said, "Come in, come in!" He motioned towards the warm, dry interior of the house. "Let's get you into some dry clothes!"

Trish led Fred back to her old room, then, and Fred followed, dripping water with every step.

"I got lost again, Mom," Fred said brokenly as she stepped into her old room. Tears flowed down her cheeks. "I'm still lost."

Nothing had changed in the room. It was exactly as it had been left when Winifred Burkle had left home to attend the graduate physics program at UCLA, so many years ago.

Trish hugged her daughter, trying not to cry herself. "We're gonna make it all right, Fred." She pulled some of Fred's old clothes out of the dresser by the bed. "Here," she said.

As she took the clothes, Fred met her mother's loving gaze with eyes filled with infinite sadness. "I don't know if you can."

* * *

Epigoni  
by P.H. Wise

An Angel crossover fanfic

Chapter 5 – The Importance of Being Doyle

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel. I don't own Stargate. Please don't sue me. This story contains spoilers for the final episode of Angel.

* * *

"Offworld activation!" Walter called. A moment later, General Hammond came striding into the control room.

"Receiving SG-11's IDC, Sir."

Hammond nodded. "Right on time. Open the iris."

With one hand on the palm scanner, Walter depressed the manual iris release mechanism, and the thin sheet of metal that had stood between Earth and certain doom so very many times rotated open.

A moment later, the four members of SG-11 came through the gate, sans the food and supplies that they had taken to the band of Jaffa refugees on the planet they'd just visited.

And then, seconds before the gate closed, the Groosalug also emerged from the wormhole, though none of the humans present could see him.

At first.

But then the TER scan came online – standard practice upon disembarkation ever since the incident with the Reetu during the Stargate Program's second year of operation.

In the presence of the TER scan, the invisibility field which the Groosalug had been using to escape detection, flickered, and for a moment, he was rendered visible.

In an instant, the TER beam was refixed upon his position, and every single one of the weapons in the gateroom (of which there were a considerable number) was fixed upon his partially visible form.

"PUT YOUR HANDS OVER YOUR HEAD!" one of the soldiers ordered.

The Groosalug took stock of his options... and then complied.

This was most certainly not what he'd had planned when he'd decided to follow SG-11 through the Stargate this morning.

* * *

Wrapped in blankets, a mug of hot cocoa in hand, Illyria, in the guise of Winifred Burkle, sat comfortably in front of the fireplace in the Burkle home, with Fred's parents sitting close at hand. That hated feeling was back. Guilt. They were happy to see... the shell. The girl that she had killed. The girl that she sort of was.

And she was allowing them to believe that their little girl was just fine.

Illyria felt guilt.

"When we heard about the terrorist attack on the Wolfram and Hart building, we didn't know what to think," Roger said, wiping tears from his eyes. "We tried to call you at your apartment, but we couldn't get a hold of you. Then, when your friend Charles was found dead in the alleyway behind that hotel y'all used to work at..." Roger shook his head. "We feared the worst."

Trish nodded in agreement with her husband. "What happened in LA, Fred?"

That horrible sense of guilt swelled within the Old One. She could not continue this act much longer. "I died," she said softly.

Trish and Roger stared at their daughter.

"What are you talking about?" Roger asked.

Fred smiled sadly. "Daddy, I love you like pancakes, but you had to 've noticed something when y'all came to visit."

Neither Trish nor Roger said a word, but waited for Fred to go on.

"It started when a big ol' sarcophagus was delivered to my lab..."

**FLASH**

In the Wolfram and Hart science lab, Fred and Knox stood staring at the most recent addition to their workspace – the sarcophagus.

"I couldn't find any invoice," Knox said. "I thought maybe you went crazy on eBay."

Fred shook her head. "No. No eBay." She circled the sarcophagus slowly. "After that commemorative plate incident, I'm living clean. Did you run a spectral analysis?"

"Yeah. Everything's bouncing off it, which doesn't thrill me."

"Yeah. Let's not be hasty about opening it. It's probably just a mummy."

**FLASH**

"It was big. It looked like it was made of sandstone, and it had what looked like a big old iris on top, surrounded by crystals the size of your fist." Fred shook her head. "I was only curious."

Her parents said nothing.

"I touched it. The iris opened, and it blasted me in the face with a gust of air. And that's what killed me."

"People don't die from a little gust of air, Fred," Trish said, sounding very patient.

"I did," Fred replied, and she was very close to tears again. "Turns out it wasn't such a little gust of air after all."

**FLASH**

"I have to work," Fred said, knocking over a glass beaker, which shattered on the floor.

"You have to lie down," Wesley replied, his eyes full of concern.

"I am not...I am not the damsel in distress," Fred insisted, her face flushed, "I am not some case. I have to work this. I lived in a cave for 5 years in a world where they killed my kind like cattle. I am not going to be cut down by some monster flu. I am better than that!" Her voice became soft. "But I wonder... how very scared I am." She looked away.

Wesley looked Fred in the eyes. "I swear on my life, we will stop this, but you must be back in bed. That's where I need you to fight."

"Like I'm 6 years old?" she asked, and then collapsed.

Wesley caught her before she hit the floor.

Fred shook her head, gazing about in disgust. "This is a house of death."

Wes stood her up and held her, and she spotted one of his sourcebooks on the counter of her laboratory.

"That can call up any book you need?"

Wesley nodded. "Every one."

"Then bring it. Take me home."

**FLASH**

"Turns out it was chock full of a very, very old demon named Illyria. It went to work like a pathogen, raising my body temperature, spreading through every cell. Angel, Spike, Charles, Lorne, and my Wesley, they all tried to save me. But in the end, there was nothing they could do. I tried to fight it, but it was too strong." Her voice became soft. "It was stronger than anything. It liquified most of my internal organs, and I died in Wesley's arms."

"That's crazy, Fred," her father insisted. "You're not dead! You're here, with us, now."

Trish said nothing.

Fred met her father's eyes, and in that moment, she shifted. Her clothing rippled, hardening into red leather and spreading to cover her in a kind of catsuit. Her eyes seemed to freeze over, and blue streaks ran through her hair and across her exposed skin. In an instant, their little girl was gone, and in her place was a creature whose movements and bearing were utterly alien.

Roger's jaw dropped open, and he backed away from the creature that had killed his daughter. Trish didn't move.

The voice that spoke then was Fred's no longer – the pleasant Texan twang was gone, replaced by a colder, harder edge. It seemed Kingly for all that it was filled with distress. "Winifred Burkle was supposed to have ended then, not merely dead, but utterly destroyed, her soul consumed by the fires of my rebirth. But somehow, intolerably, that was not the way it happened. I do not understand how it happened, but instead of simply ceasing to exist, her soul became my soul, and all that she was passed into me."

Both Trish and Roger stared at Illyria in mute horror. The bottom had just fallen out of their world, and all the nightmares that they had passed off as ridiculous suddenly come true.

Illyria quailed before the horrible sense of absolute guilt. This, she knew, was HER FAULT. It was HER priests who had arranged for her resurrection. HER servant who had delivered the sarcophagus to the laboratory of Winifred Burkle. HER essence that had consumed that human body from within...

* * *

Yet once more, the Groosalug was marched through the hallways of the SGC. Yet once more, he was bound in handcuffs. "I MUST speak to General Hammond!" he called out.

The soldiers didn't stop. He was far stronger than they, but they outnumbered him by a significant degree. With guns to his back, they marched him through the silent corridors that led back down to the brig, and there they cast him on his face, though not before removing the wristband that permitted him to become invisible.

He snapped the handcuffs as soon as the door to his cell was closed, and struck the door violently. It dented slightly, but the intense pain in his knuckles showed him that he would damage his hand far more quickly than the door. His face a picture of vexation, he sat down, and waited.

It was nearly an hour later that the door slid open, and George Hammond, accompanied by three armed guards, stepped through.

Groo rose to his feet as the General entered the room.

"All right, son," Hammond said, "You've got exactly five minutes to explain yourself."

"Thank you."

"Four minutes, fifty five seconds."

Groo grimaced. "General Hammond, I am not one who can sit quietly and accept imprisonment. I am a Champion. By nature, I must fight. Surely a man such as yourself can understand this."

Hammond nodded faintly. "I see."

Groo went on. "When last I was in this cell, I heard a strange noise in the hall. The door opened, and I pretended to be asleep. I could see nothing enter, yet I knew that I was not alone." His eyes were full of intensity as he spoke. "A man appeared, wearing the very same clothing that I wear now. He stripped himself of it, and then he fell bonelessly to the ground. A very small demon came out of his neck, and lunged for me. I caught it, killed it, and escaped. Once I discerned how best to work the invisibility device, I attempted to escape, yet to no avail; your base is large, and the passages confusing. Yet I did learn much while I walked this place unseen. Then, finally, I decided to follow one of your groups through the giant stone ring. You know the rest of the story."

Hammond nodded again, and his harsh expression softened ever so slightly. He considered what he might say next for a few moments.

"Have I committed some crime that I am to remain locked in this cell?" Groo asked.

Hammond thought about that for a while, and then, reluctantly shook his head. "No. You have committed no crimes."

"I have seen what you do here, General. As I said, I have watched your people for several days. I saw your team feeding the hungry. I've heard tell of many great battles against a superior foe. I wish to lend my sword to your cause. For I too am a Champion, and I too fight as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it could be."

Hammond smiled bemusedly. "I'll take that under consideration. But for now, you're free to go." He gestured to one of the soldiers standing close at hand. "One of these airmen will escort you off of the premises."

Groo shook his head. "General, I have nowhere to go." His voice took on a slightly hopeless note. "I have no way to return to my homeland, and everyone I care about on this world is dead. Whither shall I go?"

The General didn't have an answer for that.

* * *

"When?" Trish asked. It was barely a whisper.

"Approximately a month and a half before you came to visit me at Wolfram and Hart."

"Why?" Roger asked.

"I had no choice in the matter. It was done by an insufferable little man named Knox. Wesley killed him."

"Good," said Roger, his expression grim.

"And you... masqueraded as our Fred?" Trish again.

"Yes."

"Why?"

That was the question, wasn't it? And it had burned in Illyria ever since that very day. It had only been recently that she had been able to admit the truth: she had done it because she did not want to break the hearts of Trish and Roger Burkle.

"WHY!" Trish screamed.

"Do you not understand? This was never supposed to happen! Old Ones don't HAVE souls! We are renders of souls. Devourers of life. I was god to a god, traveling all of the dimensions as I pleased, living seven lives at once, and destroying whatsoever it pleased me to destroy! Winifred Burkle was supposed to have ceased when I was reborn inside her shell." Illyria clenched her teeth and shook her head violently. "This... this... gestalt... this human with the power of an Old One, this Old One with a human soul... this was never supposed to happen!" She dragged fingers curled into claws across her face. "She's IN me, infecting me with humanity, and I can't dig her out!"

Trish took the cross that hung from the chain around her kneck and held it up, then, and stepped forward, a desperate hope growing in her eyes. "You get out of my daughter right now in the name of Jesus, you unclean spirit!" she commanded, her tone imperial.

Illyria looked at the cross, then up at the desperate face of Fred's mother. She placed her hand on the cross. "It's too late for that," she said, and the gentleness of her tone was strange, and almost unnatural in light of her inhuman appearance.

Trish fell to her knees, and began to weep. "Why did you come here?" she asked, now utterly broken. "Why didn't you just stay away and tell us this? We woulda been just fine without knowing this!"

Roger put his arms around his wife. "... our daughter is dead?" he asked hopelessly.

"Not in the sense that you mean it."

Neither Burkle said a word to that.

Illyria's heart clenched. What she said next was difficult for her to express, mostly because she didn't WANT to express it. But it was the truth, no matter how she wanted to scream denial of it. "I tried to deny it. I tried to fight against it, but I could not fight what had become myself. Among my kind, adaptation is a weakness. We do not adapt. We force everything else to adapt to us. But no matter how much I may wish it otherwise, I am not the same being that walked the Earth as an absolute ruler. Winifred Burkle is in me, as I am in her. There is now no distinction between us."

The Burkles clearly did not understand.

Illyria cocked her head slightly to the side. For all her best efforts to explain, they still did not understand. "If I am not Winifred Burkle, then I not Illyria, either. I am both and neither."

At last, Roger nodded. "I see."

Illyria looked Roger in the eye, studying him very carefully. After a moment, she nodded, and her expression softened. "'What though the field be lost? All is not lost.' Once, long ago, I heard the Morningstar speak those selfsame words, and I laughed to hear it, thinking them the pathetic mewling of an insolent child who could not bear stern discipline." Her tone became soft. "Now, I know better."

Trish shuddered.

* * *

About an hour after the Groosalug's release from the brig, SG-1 was once again seated in the briefing room within the Cheyenne Mountain complex. A television/VCR combination sat on a rolling cart close at hand; they had only just finished watching what had been on the tape. George Hammond sat at the head of the table, with a thin folder laid open in front of him. He glanced down at the contents of the folder to remind himself of the necessary information, and then began to speak.

"Winifred Burkle," he began, "born in northern Texas in 1976. A straight-A student, she lived with at home with her parents until she graduated from college at the top of her class. Her only criminal record to speak of dates back to her high school days, and involves being caught in possession of small amounts of marijuana. After graduation, she enrolled in the graduate physics program at UCLA, where she worked primarily with a professor named Oliver Seidel. By all accounts, she was absolutely brilliant. We actually had considered tapping her for the Stargate program, until she disappeared."

"Disappeared, sir?" Jack asked.

"She held a part time job as an assistant librarian at one of Los Angeles' many public libraries. According to the statement given by the head librarian to the police," Hammond picked up a piece of paper and read from it, "It was creepy. One minute she was cataloguing in the foreign language section, and the next minute she's gone." He replaced the paper in the folder.

No one said a word.

"After her disappearance in the library, she remained missing for five years, after which she reappeared suddenly, now working for a detective agency in Los Angeles by the name of Angel Investigations. She worked there for two years with a Mr. Angel (first name unknown), Lorne (last name unknown), Charles Gunn, Cordelia Chase, and Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. Angel Investigations had only just recently moved its offices to the site of the Hyperion Hotel."

Daniel blinked. "Wasn't that the..."

"Yes. The site that you made contact with Illyria and 'The Groosalug, immediately beside the alley in which that same Charles Gunn was found dead."

"Curiouser and Curiouser," Jack said.

"Two years after Winifred Burkle began working for Angel Investigations, miss Cordelia Chase fell into a coma, cause unknown, and the entire staff of Angel Investigations moved into the Los Angeles offices of Wolfram and Hart."

"The law firm?" Sam asked, her mind racing.

"Yes. As I'm sure you're aware, we suspect that Wolfram and Hart is involved in, shall we say, unsavory dealings, not limited to providing legal cover and funding for certain N.I.D. operations and experiments."

"Anna," said Daniel, his expression grim.

"We believe so," Hammond replied, "but we've been unable to prove it. Wolfram and Hart is nothing if not VERY good at covering their tracks." He took a breath, and went on. "Once they'd moved in at Wolfram and Hart, Mr. Gunn's talents as a lawyer won them no small number of cases in court," Hammond's voice showed his deep disapproval of Mr. Gunn, "most of which involved people who were obvious criminals of the worst sort being freed on technicalities."

"How'd they go from private investigators to that?" Daniel asked.

Hammond shook his head. "I'd ask them, but as it happens, each of them are either missing and presumed dead, or just dead. On the night of the attack in Los Angeles, the Wolfram and Hart building collapsed in on itself, presumably the result of a significant quantity of explosives planted in its basement. Several objects were recovered from the wreckage, among which were a number of swords, axes, and other medieval weaponry, several blank books, and the videocassette, which you have each already reviewed, with a recorded advertisement for Angel Investigations featuring one Francis Doyle, who worked at Angel Investigations two years prior to Miss Burkle's reappearance until his death in an unspecified accident."

Hammond looked at each of the members of SG-1, his expression serious. "I don't know what changes Miss Burkle may have undergone since she began calling herself 'Illyria,' but she is obviously extremely dangerous. We received a call today informing us that she has been sighted at her parents' home. I want you to bring her back here. Are there any questions?"

"Yeah," Jack said, "I got a question. We barely took her down last time, and that was with concentrated zat fire, which didn't work anywhere near as well the second time we tried it. What do you suggest we use this time, sir? Harsh language?"

Hammond shook his head. "Do whatever it takes, just get her here, and come back safely."

There were no other questions.

Hammond nodded. "All right. SG-1, you have a go."

They stood up, then, and began to file out of the room. Daniel remained behind long enough to take the tape from the VCR. As the door shut behind the last member of SG-1, Hammond sighed.

"Godspeed," he said.

* * *

Several hours later, a black SUV pulled up in front of the Burkle home. The rain had stopped, and clouds were breaking up, the ghostly stars beaming through so as to bathe great swathes of the country in starlight, even as the rest remained under cloud-shadow.

Clad in civilian clothes, Jack, Daniel, Sam, and Teal'c stepped out of the car. None of them were entirely certain of what to expect, so they moved cautiously, with military precision, towards the closed front door of the house. There was no sign of disturbance. For all that any of them could tell it was just another house in the Texan countryside.

They knew better.

It was Jack who knocked on the door, rapping out the beat of 'shave and a haircut.'

Roger Burkle answered the door, his face more drawn and sorrowful than Jack remembered from the pictures they had been shown. The man looked like he had been crying recently, and the sound of his wife's sobs drifted gently out the open door and into the starlit night.

"Look, this isn't a good time," Roger began, "We've just had some very bad news, and it's hittin' us pretty hard. I don't know what y'all are sellin', but why don't you come on back some other time?"

"Afraid not, sir," Jack said, holding up his ID. "United States Air Force. We need to speak with you on a matter of national security."

Roger met Jack's eyes, and just stared at him for so long that Jack almost suspected that he wasn't going to let them in. But then he stepped aside, and gestured for SG-1 to enter. "Right. Come on in, then."

SG-1 filed into the house.

It wasn't terribly large, the Burkle home, but it had the air of a place that had been lived in and well. Small, terribly comfortable, and the only thing missing that Jack could see was a pond to fish in.

Trish Burkle looked up and wiped her eyes as SG-1 came in. "Who are they?" she asked, her tone an angry one.

"These here men and woman are from the United States Air Force," Roger replied gently, "Said there's a matter of national security to talk to us about."

"Are you here for Illyria?" Trish asked, her anger fading.

Jack nodded. "Yes Ma'am."

"She's in the back yard," Roger said. "Said she didn't like being cooped up in the house, and that she wanted to go listen to some kinda song of the green."

Trish gave Roger a plaintive look.

Roger nodded. "Listen, if you're going to take her, please just do it quickly. The sooner she's gone, the sooner... well, I don't rightly know if heal is the right word, nor accept, but maybe we can forget."

Jack nodded, taking pity on the couple. He waved his hand toward the sliding glass door that led out into the back yard before heading off towards it.

His team followed.

She stood amidst the grass and wildflowers, arms outstretched, her back to the door to the house - Illyria, the human god-king, the Old One with a soul. She was yet clad in her peculiar leather catsuit, and her blue-streaked brown hair fell loosely about her shoulders.

"Whatcha doin'?" Jack asked lazily.

Illyria turned smoothly, and for all her partially recovered humanity, her movements still seemed lizard-like. She did not respond, however, but only took in the sight of SG-1 standing in Fred's parents' backyard with an eerie sense of calm.

Jack waited for an answer.

At length, Illyria replied. "I am listening to the song of the green."

Jack raised his eyebrows. "Right. Do you know why we're here?"

"Yes. You seek to return me to that cage of a mountain. Your efforts are in vain. You barely stopped me before, injured and weakened. I have had more than enough time to recover my strength; I go where I please."

"Fred?" Daniel asked. "Can I call you Fred?"

"The praenomen by which you address me is irrelevant," she replied scornfully.

"Right," said Daniel, not entirely convinced. "Are you still Fred, or did becoming Illyria completely change who you are?"

Illyria looked at SG-1, then – really looked – and immediately walked to Teal'c and removed the black winter cap under which he had hidden his golden tattoo. "You belong to Apophis," she murmured. "I remember when he and those like him first descended from the sky."

Teal'c arched an eyebrow. "You know of the Goa'uld?"

"Yes," she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, "Although I have never before seen one of their symbols branded upon the forehead of a human."

"Wahuh?" Jack asked.

Daniel's eyes lit up with fascination. "Are you originally from another world that they've harvested for hosts prior to their use of humans?"

Illyria met Daniel's gaze. "They have been here before. Once, long ago, they came to enslave one of the lesser races. We let them; we had little interest in the slime that eats itself."

All of SG-1 looked confused at that. Jack considered tuning out completely, just KNOWING that Daniel was about to go into some hyper-excited mode of geek-speak. It was only by sheer effort of will that he restrained himself.

"The Goa'uld have visited earth in the past?" Daniel asked.

"Yes. They took many beings called Unas. As I said, we cared little for the dealings of such creatures."

Jack frowned. "And you're telling us this because...?"

Illyria turned away. "It suits me to do so," she said, and although her tone was arrogant, Jack thought that there was also a generous amount of defensiveness therein.

"Right. SO, about coming back with us..."

"I will not."

"Right." He turned to the other members of SG-1. "I got nothin'."

Daniel looked slightly annoyed with Jack, but said nothing. "Fred, if you are still Fred at all, We know all about Angel Investigations. We know about what you did there. Helping the hopeless, right? Well, that's what we do as well."

Illyria turned to look at Daniel. "It seems that my half-breed pet spoke truly," she mused. "There really is no shortage of warriors in this world." Her voice became cold. "It matters not. You will stand little chance against me."

"If you can remember being Fred, then you know why we have to take you back to the mountain."

Illyria considered that. "... You believe me dangerous."

"Yes."

"You believe me a threat to your world."

"Yes."

"You are correct."

Daniel produced a videocassette from within his jacket pocket. "What we do at the mountain is much like what your friends did at Angel Investigations, Miss Burkle. We're trying to protect people. That's why we need you to come with us – in your present state, you may well be a danger to the people around you. We can help you. Maybe even bring you back to the way you were before Illyria... Look, I want you to watch this tape. Once you're done, you can decide whether or not you'll come with us."

Illyria glanced at the videotape, then met Daniel's eyes, and nodded, ever so slightly.

As they all filed inside, Jack pulled Daniel aside for a moment. "Daniel?" he asked.

"Jack?" Daniel replied.

"Care to tell me what you're doing?"

Daniel shrugged helplessly. "Finding out how much of Winifred Burkle is left in Illyria?"

He stepped inside, leaving Jack quite thoroughly annoyed out in the yard.

Jack came in a moment later.

Illyria had sat herself down in front of the television, and Daniel was in the process of loading the tape into the VCR. Roger and Trish had gone upstairs, neither of them ready to see Illyria again so soon.

With the click of a button, it began.

A skinny young man with dark hair and earnest eyes appeared on the screen. Jack recognized him from his own earlier viewing of the tape in the briefing room: Allen Francis Doyle, one of the founding members of Angel Investigations, the group of private investigators that Fred Burkle had worked for before moving to Wolfram and Hart.

"If you need help," Doyle said, looking straight into the camera with an earnest look, "Then look no further. Angel Investigations is the best! - Our rats are low."

A female voice – a voice that Illyria recognized as belonging to Cordelia Chase – came from off screen.

"Our rates!"

Doyle pointed to something just behind the camera. "It says 'rats'." He shrugged. "Our rates are low, but our standards are high. When the chips are down, and you're at the end of your rope you need someone that you can count on. And that's what you'll find here - someone that will go all the way, no matter what."

Jack was very tempted to roll his eyes. Allen Francis Doyle would have won no Oscars.

"So don't lose hope. Come on over to our offices and you'll see that there's still heroes in this world." Doyle cleared his throat. Is that it? Am I done?"

There was a faint click, then, as if someone had tapped the power button, but without enough pressure to actually turn the camera off. The tape continued, and Cordy's voice came again.

"I don't know. I'm not getting every man, I'm getting weasel. We don't want weasel."

Doyle smiled faintly, now considerably less wooden that he believed the camera wasn't pointing at him. "I don't know. I think people will be pouring in as soon as they hear about our low rats." He shrugged. "I could take another crack at it."

"I don't think so."

"Weasel factor, huh?"

"Doyle, I didn't mean it like that. I'm sorry. I'm just... I feel kind of hopeless with him down there doing the non-profit brooding. It's not like he has a heart. How could it be so broken?"

"I guess seeing Buffy again just got him where he lives," Doyle replied.

"That's all very sad, but we live here too."

"I'll talk to him."

"Maybe if we get him a costume!" Cordy exclaimed.

"A costume?"

"Well, the guy is a bona fide hero, would it kill him to put on some tights and a cape and garner us some free publicity?"

Doyle tried not to laugh. "I don't see Angel putting on some tights." He took a deep breath and shook his head. "Ah, now I do, and it's really disturbing."

The tape ended, and the voices of the dead faded away. A moment later, Daniel shut off the television, and ejected the tape.

Illyria looked up from the blank screen, met Daniel Jackson's eyes, and nodded. "I will go."

Daniel smiled.

As they filed out the front door and headed over to the SUV, Jack couldn't help but wonder what kind of meaning such a cheesy commercial could possibly have held for something like Illyria. Winifred. Whatever.

Heroes.

He didn't give it much thought, usually, but he supposed that his team did count as 'bona fide heroes.'

Jack wasn't sure he liked that thought.

What did heroes generally get for all their heroism? Honour, a friend, anguish, untimely death?

* * *

And far away, in the alley behind the Hyperion hotel, things were very different now. The corpses of demons had been long since cleared away, although even the best efforts of the cleaning crews could not remove the bloodstains from the pavement, which yet bore the stain of demon-gore.

It was night, and it was unusually cold for Los Angeles. And Fred's voice echoed there, far away, long ago, but still clear. "Once upon a time there was a girl who lived all alone in a horrible cave, so far from home it made her chest hurt."

It was night, and Angel was dead. And Spike was dead. Both ensouled vampires had long since turned to dust.

"And every day in that horrible cave, the girl tried to figure out a way to escape."

Gunn was dead.

Wesley was dead.

Cordelia was dead.

Doyle was dead.

Heroes all.

"None of her plans ever succeeded, of course, and she'd almost given up hopin' when one day, just like in a fairy tale, a handsome man rode up on a horse and saved her, and took her back to his castle."

Heroes all, and not forgotten. Not passed from the hearts of those whom they had saved, and those whom they had loved. Not gone from the memories of those for whom they had made a difference.

"Now you'd think that was the end, wouldn'tcha?"

No vampire walked there now, and demons avoided it as if it were a holy place.

"Dumb old fairy tales and their happily ever afters."

And there, on the very spot where Gunn, Spike, and Angel met their end, a faint breeze picked up, and stirred the bits of trash that lay scattered there, beneath which rested, forgotten now, rusted and lost, a claddagh ring.

End Chapter 05

* * *

Feedback is most definitely welcome – particularly constructive criticism. Nothing makes me happier than to know what specifically you (the reader) liked, what you didn't like, and (most importantly) why. 


	7. Interlude: A Doctor's Work

A Doctor's Work  
by P.H. Wise

An Angel crossover shortfic

Author's note: This is an interlude of sorts. It's set in the universe of 'Epigoni,' but doesn't directly connect to the main storyline. I wasn't really sure what to do with it, but eventually I figured that I might as well post it. This particular story takes place about two weeks after the end of chapter 5.

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel. I don't own Stargate. Please don't sue me. This story contains spoilers for the final episode of Angel.

* * *

Doctor Elizabeth Weir sat uncomfortably in the desk that had once belonged to General Hammond. Her hair was still dyed blonde, though she was considering letting it return to its natural brunette colour. Blonde really didn't seem to be working for her here.

She realized with a start that she was obsessing over trivialities.

Here she was, in command of the greatest secret the world had ever known, and she was worrying about her hair colour.

Weir shook her head bemusedly.

She had been on the job for only a little while now, and already she was getting a headache. With a hand on her forehead, she looked up as Walter, the Gate technician, poked his head inside the office.

"You sent for me, Ma'am?" he asked.

Weir nodded. "I did. How long have you been working here, Walter?"

"Oh, since..." Walter thought about it. "Since the beginning, really."

"It's a little bit overwhelming."

Walter nodded. "Yeah, it can be kind of intense."

"OK. If you've been here from the beginning, maybe you're the best one to ask this: is there anything else I should be aware of that I haven't been told just yet?"

Walter's expression was very carefully blank.

"...What? What is it?" Weir asked.

"Well..."

* * *

Several minutes later, Weir stood in the open doorway of the cafeteria, staring at the two 'aliens' who were seated at a table therein. SG-1 was in the cafeteria as well – on the opposite side – and as she watched Illyria and the Groosalug, snatches of the flagship team's conversation filtered in to her awareness.

"Proklarush Taonas," Doctor Jackson insisted. "I think you wrote the name of the planet where we'll find the lost city in the crossword.

"... Bit of a jump," O'Neill replied.

"Well, why else would you do that?"

Major Carter reached out and took Jack's crossword puzzle from Daniel. "The clue for seven down is 'celestial body' and he wrote 'Uma Thurman'."

O'Neill smiled. "Yes!" he said contentedly.

Their conversation went on, but Doctor Weir ignored it. Far more interesting to her were the two aliens. "Who are they?" she asked.

Groo ate another spoonful from his bowl full of red jello. "... and then I leaped into the vast horde of Graxlar beasts, sword in hand, cutting and slicing my way through them with the sure skill that grants unto me the title of Groosalug. They were many, and valiant, but they were no match; they all fell before me in the end, and I took the baby cow that they had taken for their evening meal, and returned it to its mother."

Illyria nodded thoughtfully. "At the height of my power, these 'Graxlars' would have slain themselves at the very rumor of my approach." Her tone was strange, and it sounded as though she wasn't really sure whether or not she liked that idea any more.

Groo nodded seriously. "Times change, Old One. What was once familiar and safe is gone, and now there is only change, and newness, and walls."

That seemed to upset Illyria slightly, but she nodded. "Yes. Humans do seem to love to wall themselves in."

Elizabeth turned to Walter, who stood nearby. "Who are they?" she asked again.

Walter blinked. "His name is Groosalug. She's Illyria."

"What are they doing here?"

"They... won't leave. Well, he won't, and she can't. Although technically she COULD, and we wouldn't be able to do anything to stop her, but so far she hasn't."

Dr. Weir could feel that headache coming back.

End A Doctor's Work

* * *

Feedback is most definitely welcome – particularly constructive criticism. Nothing makes me happier than to know what specifically you (the reader) liked, what you didn't like, and (most importantly) why. 


	8. In A Little While

Epigoni  
by P.H. Wise

An Angel crossover fanfic

Chapter 6 – In A Little While...

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel. I don't own Stargate. Please don't sue me. This story contains spoilers for the final episode of Angel. This chapter contains small excerpts from the Stargate SG-1 episode, 'New Order, Part 1.' I don't own that either.

* * *

"Why fight?" Angel asked.

Holland smiled. "That's really the question you should be asking yourself, isn't it? See, for us, there is no fight, which is why winning doesn't enter into it. We go on, no matter what. Our firm has always been here in one form or another. The Inquisition. The Khmer Rouge. We were there when the very first cave man clubbed his neighbor. See, we're in the hearts and minds of every single living being. And that, friend, is what's making things so difficult for you. The world doesn't work in spite of evil, Angel. It works with us. It works because of us."

The elevator came to a slow stop, and the doors parted. Angel looked out onto the plaza in front of the Wolfram and Hart office in Los Angeles, where a homeless man, dirty, grubby, and utterly without hope, pushed a shopping cart wherein was placed everything he owned.

"Welcome to the home office," Holland Manners said.

"This isn't..."

"Of course it is! You know that better than anyone. All the things you've seen. All the things you've, well, done. You see, if there wasn't evil in every single one of them out there," Two people in the plaza began to yell at one another. "Why, they wouldn't be people. They'd all be angels."

Angel stepped out of the elevator in a daze, staring bleakly about.

"Have a nice day," Holland called as the doors slid shut with a faint hiss.

Slowly, Angel walked the streets of LA.

On a corner, a prostitute looked disgustedly down at the greasy looking man – a potential customer – who had approached her. Nowhere to go. Nothing to turn to. She had to support her children somehow, but she'd never thought it would come to this. Hating him and hating herself more, she walked with her disgusting client into a nearby alleyway.

Angel walked on.

"I HATE YOU!" a teenaged girl shrieked at her mother. The mother slapped her daughter, and hatred seethed between them. "GO TO HELL!" the girl screamed to her mother's face, and whirled, and stomped away. Neither one saw the hurt that rested in the eyes of the other.

Angel walked on.

A woman lay face down in a dark alleyway, her life spilling out of a knife wound in her side. The man who had mugged her - the man who had killed her - searched frantically through her purse and wallet. His eyes lit up as he found what he had killed to take: a twenty-dollar bill, and a handful of change.

Angel walked on.

A dirty hobo lay in front of a liquor store, clutching a brown-bagged bottle as though it were his last hope in the world. People stepped out of their way to avoid getting too close to him. He lay there in a haze of drunken shame, hating the people who ignored him, hating his drink, and most of all, hating himself.

Angel walked on.

Illyria waved her hand, and the hole in space/time shut with a snap-hiss, and with it, the images of Angel. She stood in the laboratory that had been set up within Stargate Command for the purpose of testing her abilities. Doctor Rodney McKay – the latest in the line of doctors come to test her – stared in disbelief, for once in his life at a loss for words.

Groosalug stood close at hand, clearly troubled by what he had seen.

"How did you do that?" Rodney asked at last.

Illyria regarded the doctor coldly. "Since my diminishment, I have regained a small portion of my power over time and space. Such a display was once a simple matter. Now, it requires all of my concentration."

"Thanks, that makes it SO much clearer," said Rodney sarcastically. "How did you DO that?"

Illyria spared the doctor an annoyed look. A few weeks earlier, before the influence of the soul of Winifred Burkle had had time to grow, she would have destroyed him without a second thought. Now, she restrained herself, though she still felt the urge. "How do your limbs respond to your will, Doctor?"

Rodney's nostrils flared slightly. He was clearly annoyed. "Of course. I should have expected that a person whose brain has been liquified wouldn't be able to give me a satisfactory answer."

Illyria's eyes narrowed. If looks could kill, hers would have shattered several small moons. "We are done here," she announced, her voice growing colder by the second. She turned smoothly and walked out, and Groo followed, leaving Rodney to go over the readings that the various sensors within the room had taken during Illyria's demonstration.

All things considered, he was very glad that he wouldn't have to deal with this much longer. Whatever else could be said for or against it, at least at Atlantis, he wouldn't have to deal with Illyria anymore.

* * *

"Old One," Groo called.

Illyria stopped in the middle of the hallway and turned towards the Groosalug. She directed a questioning look his way.

"Those images – they were real?"

Illyria nodded. "Pulled from a point in time before Angel rescued my--me from Pylea."

Groo looked clearly troubled by this news. Illyria tilted her head slightly as she considered him.

"Is it really like that?" Groo asked.

"In the world of humans?"

"Yes," said Groo.

"It is. The Senior Partners have done their job all too well. Man's inhumanity towards man grows stronger every day. Even without the Circle of the Black Thorn, swollen with wind and the rank mist they draw, humanity rots inwardly, and foul contagion spreads, and that two-handed engine at the door stands ready. The Apocalypse continues." She saw something in his countenance then, for a look of concern crossed her face. "Does this knowledge disturb you?"

"Yes," he said again, this time barely more than a whisper.

"Why?"

Groo sighed. "It makes me wonder what it was that a warrior as brave and true as Angel died fighting for."

Illyria fell silent, carefully considering her reply before answering, quite simply, "Hope."

Groo grew thoughtful at that, and then nodded.

* * *

Time flowed on, as it is wont to do, and the minutes turned to hours, hours to days, and the days into weeks, all of it blending together into the continuous now. The Goa'uld System-Lords were soon to arrive for the summit at the SGC, and with all the goings on, Illyria and the Groosalug had been all but forgotten.

They came and went as Illyria pleased. She was Groosalug's guaranteed reentry pass. Although he did not understand why she sought his company, he did not begrudge her it. Although General Hammond had gone, and Dr. Elizabeth Weir had replaced him, she was no more encouraging in regards to his prospects for joining an SG team than he had been. They had become nonentities – mere ghosts, haunting the SGC – they were ignored by all but Daniel Jackson, who spent some of his off-hours pouring over books in search of some reference to Illyria, and to her race.

Dr. Jackson had, thus far, been unsuccessful.

Oh, sure, it was easy enough to find out about the peninsula in the Balkans that had been called 'Illyria,' and it had pleased Illyria immensely to know that her name had not been completely forgotten by the world, but the shared name, for all the richness of the suggestion it created, did not lead to any kind of breakthrough in their understanding of the Old One. Rodney's work in the lab seemed much more promising in that regard.

Rodney certainly thought so.

Which brings us to the now, where Rodney Mckay stood in the briefing room of the SGC, giving Dr. Weir his report on the Old One in question.

"What do you have for me, Doctor?" she asked.

He set a folder down on the table in front of the good Doctor. "It's all there in my report," he said, sounding entirely too pleased with himself.

Elizabeth met his proud gaze. "Why don't you give it, then."

He was taken aback for a moment, and then managed to stutter out, "Of course." He took a breath. "Well, obviously she's abnormally strong, fast, and extremely durable. She allowed me to test three different kinds of weapons on her, each with varying results. Zat blasts will knock her out after continuous, concentrated fire. Staff weapons are mostly ineffective, and our standard issue bullets only seem to bruise her."

Dr. Weir raised an eyebrow. "She let you shoot her?"

Rodney laughed. "That's kind of a funny story..."

Elizabeth cut him off. "You know how to work a gun?"

Rodney's proud look crumbled. "... Doctor Jackson helped," he admitted after a moment.

He recovered quickly.

"I would surmise that armor piercing rounds would be much more effective against her than either hollow-point or the standard issue rounds issued to SG-teams."

"If we ever needed to have her killed?" Weir asked, clearly not pleased with that particular thought.

"As distasteful as that might sound, yes. Apparently, she's also able to manipulate space and time to some extent. I'd LOVE to know how she's able to do that. The most promising theories are all in the report."

Dr. Weir nodded. "Thank you, Rodney. Dismissed."

Rodney inclined his head, and then quickly departed.

As the ever-proud scientist walked out, Dr. Weir opened the folder and began to read. She had another hour before the Goa'uld were scheduled to arrive for the... summit meeting. At the very least, reading the report (and it certainly did go on at great length about the specifics of what Rodney had just told her) would take her mind off of the butterflies that were having a little party in her stomach.

Although, thinking about the Illyria problem was never particularly good for her nerves... maybe it was easier to dwell on the Groosalug – the somewhat unwelcome guest that remained here only because Illyria demanded it, and they weren't really in a position to refuse her. He, at least, had no truly exceptional abilities. Oh, sure, his physical abilities were slightly more than what you'd expect in, say, a Jaffa, but at least he seemed human enough...

* * *

The System Lords Camulus, Yu, and Amaterasu sat around the briefing room table. Daniel Jackson had taken his seat next to Amaterasu, and Doctor Weir sat at the head of the table.

Camulus spoke first. "Your unexpected defeat of Anubis has created an unstable situation among the System Lords," he said. "In order to avoid open war, we came to an agreement to divide his territories and his armies evenly."

"How civilised of you," Daniel remarked.

"Yes. Unfortunately, one of those among us has broken that agreement."

Doctor Jackson tried very hard not to laugh. "Oh, no, no, no, don't tell me, let me guess, it's, um ... " He dragged out the suspense. "Baal?"

The Goa'uld were not amused. "He was able to learn the location of the planet where Anubis was creating his Kull warriors."

Amaterasu spoke then. "With those orac at his command, Baal has tipped the balance of power in his favour."

Camulus nodded. "In battle, the Kull are far superior to the Jaffa. Already many among us have begun to speak of capitulation, much as they did with Anubis. If that happens, Baal will indeed be unstoppable."

"Well, this is all very interesting, I'm sure," said Dr. Weir, "But I fail to see what it has to do with us."

Yu beckoned his servant, Oshu, forwad. Oshu leaned down and Yu whispered into his ear for a moment.

"My master wishes to say it is well known the Tau'ri possess a powerful new weapon," Oshu said, "something far beyond their current level of technology."

Doctor Jackson nodded. "Yes, we used it to kill Anubis and destroy his fleet."

"Yes. Baal has learned much with his access to Anubis's resources. He has learned of something of great power on this world. And of a place called 'Boca Del Inferno,' where rests another Ancient device that would be of great interest to one such as him. The new weapon you speak of is the only reason he has not yet laid waste to this planet to seize this device."

"And you know this because...?" Doctor Jackson asked.

"Lord Yu has many spies within Baal's ranks."

"Right."

"But more importantly, by means of your new weapon, Baal can be prevented from conquering the..." he trailed off at the unexpected interruption of Illyria's entrance into the briefing room.

"What is the meaning of this?" Amaterasu demanded imperiously.

"That's what I'd like to know," said Weir, directing a pointed look Illyria's way.

Illyria ignored Doctor Weir, striding forward to the table, and examined each of the Goa'uld in turn. When she reached Lord Yu, she stopped, and peered directly into his eyes as though she could see the symbiote within.

"You..." she said.

"Yu?" Daniel Jackson asked.

Lord Yu looked up at Illyria in silence, his faded mind surrounded by the comfortable mists of senility. And then, something in him recognized the creature before him. The mists of his senility parted. His eyes widened. "Illyria..." he whispered.

The other Goa'uld stiffened at that name.

Illyria nodded. "Your shell is greatly changed from what you wore when last we met," she said, her voice full with barely contained spite. "You took many of my subjects."

Camulus stared at Illyria in abject horror. "Doctor Weir, if this - this creature... if it holds allegiance to you, I," he blanched, "I... beg of you, send it away from this table."

Illyria turned towards Camulus. "You tremble. You all tremble. Are these the weak, feeble creatures that presume to call themselves gods?" She laughed. "True gods have knelt before me and sworn fealty. Tell me, why should I spare any of those presumptuous creatures that claim the title of 'god' when they have no right to it?"

None of the Goa'uld dared answer. They remembered well this creature: the memories that passed down to them through their racial memory told of this terror that had laid waste to the Goa'uld armies so many long years ago. And although she now held the appearance of a human, so too did they.

Doctor Weir looked thoughtfully at Illyria, and Illyria met her gaze. An understanding passed between the two of them. Weir held her silence a moment longer, allowing the System Lords a few moments longer to sweat before she spoke. "Illyria, will you wait outside?"

Illyria smiled cruelly, staring imperiously down at the Goa'uld. "I will," she intoned, before turning smoothly and walking out the door.

The Goa'uld all breathed a sigh of relief, leaving Doctor Jackson and Doctor Weir baffled, yet their minds racing with ways in which they could turn this to their advantage.

The System Lords, having been shaken to the core, were much more cooperative after that point.

* * *

Afterwards, when the Goa'uld System-Lords had all departed, Illyria met with Doctor Jackson and Doctor Weir in Weir's office – once Hammond's office.

Doctors Jackson and Weir exchanged looks, turned to Illyria and simultaneously asked, "Care to explain?"

Illyria smiled. Her gestures and expressions had become more human in the recent weeks, though her appearance was still anything but. "What I have done for you – it has great value."

Daniel blinked at that. "What?"

"My assistance has value to you."

Elizabeth met Illyria's gaze. "You're talking about what we owe you?"

Illyria nodded. "What you owe me."

"So, will you explain?" Daniel asked.

"I will. But it is a very long tale. How much do you know about the history of this world?"

"Um," Daniel shrugged. "It was once the home to the ancients, some of them went to the Lost City, some of them died off, and the rest Ascended. We are the second evolution of their form."

Illyria nodded. "Truly, your knowledge is limited. You know half of the tale. The other half was known to Angel."

"Angel?" Weir asked.

"Handsome man save me from the monsters," Illyria replied, her voice suddenly becoming well and truly Winnifred Burkle's, if only for a moment.

"Uh... right," said Doctor Jackson. "You were saying?"

"I am; was, one of the first ones. The Old Ones. Before the time of what you call the Ancients, we ruled the earth. Untold power emanated from all quarters: the seeds of what would come to be known as good and evil. But the shadows stretched and became darkness, and the malevolent among us grew stronger. The earth became a demon realm. Those who had the will to resist departed for higher planes, but remained ever watchful."

"And you were one of those with the will to resist?" Doctor Jackson asked, thoroughly fascinated with the tale.

"No," said Illyria, and there was a note of regret in her voice. "I was not."

"Malevolent?"

"Yes. And I waged war against my fellows. I learned to destroy everything that was not utterly mine. All that mattered was victory. That was how my reign persisted. I was as moral as a hurricane: empty but for the force of my gale."

"So what happened?"

"What always happens. Summer becomes autumn, autumn becomes winter, winter becomes spring, and spring becomes summer. The stars turned against us, and we died, or fell asleep in the deep places of the world, waiting for the time when the stars would be right once again. The beings you know as the Ancients rose as we slumbered, and when we awoke again, we destroyed them. Most of them. Many learned to ascend, like many of us had so learned before them, and once ascended, remained watchful, but would not interfere. We ruled again for a time. It was during our second summer on this earth that the Goa'uld came in search of hosts. They picked the bones of the civilization of the Ancients, and they took many of my subjects, creatures that you now call 'Unas,' to be their hosts. Yu was among those who came, old even then. Apophis and Ra were also among them, barely old enough to take a host."

"You let them take your subjects?"

"I did not. When I learned of what they were doing, I came upon them in fury, and they fell before me like chaff before the storm. It was the terror of my wrath that drove them from this world."

"So why aren't you still in charge?" Weir asked, not entirely sure whether to believe this tale.

"Man rules now where We ruled once; We shall again rule where man rules now. After summer is winter, and after winter summer. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Most lie dead but dreaming in the Deeper Well. Some still walk, serene and primal, not in the spaces we know, but between them, undimensioned and to us unseen. All of history is cyclical. Surely you know this."

Daniel nodded. He couldn't explain it very well, but he heard - he thought he heard - the ring of truth in her words. He had the strangest suspicion that he had heard this story before, though he couldn't recall where or when. "I suppose it is, though nobody's ever suggested that it's THAT cyclical. And that doesn't explain how you came to be in that body."

Sorrow – genuine human emotion – made itself known in Illyria's expression. "No, it doesn't," she said. "I may explain that someday, but now..." she shook her head, "Not now."

The doctors held their peace for a long moment after that, before Doctor Weir finally asked, "So what are we to do with you, Illyria? What do you want?"

"To conquer all, and never die," the Old One replied automatically, her sorrow concealed once more behind an imperious mask.

The two humans weren't entirely sure how to take that.

It was Daniel who replied. "Is that what you really want?"

Illyria's expression softened. "I..." she trailed off. The doctors waited for her. "I no longer know," she admitted at last.

Doctor Weir smiled. "Well, that's a start."

"In truth the Groosalug is better suited to answer such questions. He, at least, knows what he wants. He is a Champion. All he has ever wanted was to do good."

"A Champion?"

"Yes. The place that Yu's servant mentioned – Boca Del Inferno – was destroyed by such as him."

"The mouth of hell?" Doctor Jackson asked skeptically. Something about that name tugged at his memory. He'd felt it when it was mentioned in the summit, and he felt it again now - a nagging sense of familiarity, though he knew not the how or why of it.

"Yes."

Doctor Jackson wasn't entirely sure what to make of that - a common enough problem when dealing with Illyria. "So, it was destroyed? Where was it?"

Illyria met Doctor Jackson's gaze. She remembered it well. Angel had spoken of it on occasion, and it was from thence that Willow had come to put Angel's soul back in his body. "Sunnydale, California," she said.

* * *

Even as Illyria met with Doctor Jackson and Doctor Weir, the Groosalug wandered the streets of Colorado Springs. He had taken to spending much of his time here. Although there was little in the way of vampire or demon problems here, it did happen occasionally, and when it did, he was there to stop it. But mostly, he watched people.

The images that Illyria had shown him had been intensely disturbing. He'd felt it necessary to go out and see for himself if people really were like that.

They were.

Much to his distress, they were.

Oh, there was more to the story than that, of course. There were flashes of love, altruism, trust, and compassion intermingled with the bitterness, the hatred, the violence, and the pain. But that did not remove the problem of such suffering. It only made it bearable.

So he sat in one of the outdoor squares by a fountain, watching the people as they passed.

Watching as a child shrieked hatred at a parent.

Watching as a young man set up an adulterous liaison with an attractive young woman.

Watching as a drunk stumbled into the fountain, only to come up a moment later, spluttering and roaring in outrage at having been tripped by a little boy who laughed loudly before running away.

Watching as an old, weather-beaten homeless woman pushed along a cart in which was held everything she owned.

A young woman sat down at his side. Her hair was long, and dark, and she was both beautiful and toned. "You the Groosalug?" she asked.

"I am," he replied, meeting her gaze.

"I'm Faith," she said. "Just got back from a trip down south, and heard you were in the area."

"I don't know you."

"No, but a friend of mine knows you. He asked me to find out what's the what."

Groo thought about that. "All of my friends in this world are dead, save Illyria," he said.

Faith raised an eyebrow at that. "You're down with the Bluebird these days? How's that workin' out for ya?"

"She is somewhat... odd."

"No kiddin'. You're wrong, though."

"There was another survivor?" Groo asked.

Faith nodded. "Lorne asked me to check in on you."

Groo smiled faintly at that, and his heart warmed ever so slightly at the thought that one of those whom Cordelia had called friend was still alive. "He is well, then?"

"A little blue, but otherwise good. He's been working with us, lately. Me and the other Slayers."

Groo blinked, slightly alarmed at that. "His skin has changed colour?"

Faith laughed. "No. He's still green. I mean he's been depressed. What with everyone he loved dying on him." The amusement went out of her expression almost instantly upon saying those words. "Can't say I blame him."

Groo met her gaze once more, and in that moment, he understood. He nodded, and he smiled sadly. "Is there anything in this life but grief?" he asked.

Faith thought about that. "... Sometimes," she replied.

She fell silent, and together, they watched the people going by.

Watching, the Groosalug wondered...

* * *

And far away, in one of the few remaining intact caverns beneath the crater that had once been Sunnydale, California, the Ancient device glowed briefly, its untold energies rumbling to life for another in millions of long years of status checks. The Hellmouth was gone, but it had collected more than enough of the ambient energy of the dimensional breach to serve its grand purpose.

No sign of the machine's glow reached the surface. For all that anyone could tell nothing had survived the Hellmouth's collapse.

* * *

End Chapter 06

Feedback is most definitely welcome – particularly constructive criticism. Nothing makes me happier than to know what specifically you (the reader) liked, what you didn't like, and (most importantly) why.


	9. Springtime for Baal

There are some wounds that time cannot heal; there are some stains that can never be washed away. Some acts will leave a place befouled forever. And though the place be destroyed, the evil remains, festering in the ruins long after that which gave it life was slain. So it was with Sunnydale. So it was with the Hellmouth. Darkness abides.

SG-3 picked its way through the ruins, scrabbling over the rubble-strewn crater floor. Now and again a large piece of a building blocked their way, and they were forced to take the long way around. Colonel Reynolds and his team made their way on a path of broken dreams and mangled homes, and this knowledge had stilled their tongues. Here they picked through the shattered remains of the home of Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, whose son, Cameron had been an exceptionally talented – perhaps Olympic level - swimmer until he'd met Coach Marin. Now Mr. and Mrs. Andrews were dead, their bodies buried somewhere in this rubble. And Cameron? Cameron had made the long journey through black abysses to the Cyclopean and many-columned Y'ha-nthlei. Now the SG team passed close by the remains of what had once been the happy home of Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. The death of their youngest boy, who had been found in a ditch, dissected, had torn their family apart. Mr. Johnson had killed himself just last year. Mrs. Johnson had never remarried, and now lived with her remaining children on the east coast with her sister's family. Nearly every bit of rubble here was the signpost of a like tragedy. Happy families did not fare well in Sunnydale. The Hellmouth could not long abide such love and affection.

A sense of watchfulness hung over the ruin like fog. There was a presence here, something filled with impotent malice. Only his long military training prevented Reynolds from shuddering openly. Whatever it was, it felt like it hated him. It hated him, and it knew his name. Private Meyers, the newest addition to their unit, did shudder. Every dark crevice seemed full of that lurking presence. No breeze cooled that place. It was hot. Hot, and damp. The water mains had burst when the town fell into the sinkhole, and parts of it were yet flooded.

"We've been at this for hours, sir," Penhall said. "There's nothing here."

Reynolds glanced at his subordinate. "No, there's something here," he said grimly. "It's nothing good, but it's not nothing."

"Point."

Reynolds met the gaze of each of his men in turn. "We'll search the woods once more. If we don't find anything hostile, I'll inform Doctor Weir that it's safe to bring in the survey team. Any of you have a problem with that?"

Silence.

"Good. Let's move out, marines." And they did, the three marines following the Air Force Colonel.

What they called the woods had once been the Sunnydale forest. Now, it looked more like a war zone, or the playground of mad giants. Most of the trees had been uprooted and flung about every which way, though some still stood, leaning at odd angles and visibly dying. The ground was much easier to travel here, lacking the concrete rubble of the ruined town itself, but the sense of watchfulness remained. There was something evil here, and without even thinking about why, they had already decided that they would not remain in this place after dark. Yet for all that they felt, they saw nothing. Heard nothing. Silence can be oppressive, and so it was in the ruins of Sunnydale, where every noise they made felt unwelcome.

It was with great relief that Colonel Reynolds finally led his men out of the Sunnydale crater a few hours later. It was safe enough for the survey team to begin their search, they decided. Provided they didn't try to brave the place at night. And when they finally left the windless, half-lit Sunnydale crater behind them and reemerged back into the breeze and full sunlight, the world felt real again.

* * *

Epigoni  
by P.H. Wise 

An Angel crossover fanfic

Chapter 7 – Springtime for Baal

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel. I don't own Stargate. Please don't sue me. This story contains spoilers for the final episode of Angel.

* * *

Illyria strode imperiously through the doorway of Doctor Weir's office, thoroughly vexed. "Doctor Weir," she said. 

Doctor Weir looked up. Jack O'Neill sat before her desk, newly recovered from the Antarctic ice courtesy of the Asgard. He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. "Illyria," Weir replied.

"This situation has become intolerable," Illyria said. "You will rectify it. Now."

"Now is not the time," Dr. Weir began.

Illyria met Elizabeth's gaze challengingly. After a moment, Doctor Weir sighed. "What situation is that?"

"When I agreed to come here," Illyria began, her voice slipping into and out of a Texan twang, "I did so because of Daniel Jackson. I was told that what y'all do here is much the same as what I did as the Burkle persona while working for Angel Investigations. I found this appealing. Furthermore, I was told that you could help me, as much as it galled me to admit that I needed help. Yet in the time I have been here, not only has there has been no help forthcoming, but I have been ignored. You have not sought my aid, and your debt to me has not been repaid. Do you treat all of your allies thus, or just me?"

Doctor Weir and the newly promoted General O'Neill exchanged glances.

"Doctor McKay has been conducting a full investigation into your..." Weir began. Illyria cut her off.

"Doctor McKay is a mewling, pathetic creature, blind to everything save his own so called genius, every moment in whose presence continually tempts me to rend him limb from limb and make a trophy of his spine."

O'Neill considered that description, and then shrugged. "Can't argue with that," he said.

"You're not helping," Weir said. She turned to Illyria. "Illyria, try to appreciate our position. You are an unknown factor, extremely dangerous, and we have no way of knowing that you really do want to help us. In our place, what would you do?"

"I would do the same," Illyria conceded, "But this is not a question of what I would do in your place, but of what you have done in the past. I have read your records. The alien 'Teal'c' was not treated as I, nor was Jonas Quinn. They were equally unknown factors that became vital members of your organization. Why do you shun me when you embraced them? Why do you shun also the Groosalug, who is no danger to you, and has freely offered his services?"

"She's got you there," Jack said.

Weir sighed. "I'll take in under consideration, Illyria. Ultimately, however, it is not my decision. Until a decision is made in this regard... try not to make a trophy of Rodney's spine?"

Illyria's lips quirked ever so slightly, as if she were trying not to smile. She nodded, turned, and departed.

"So," said O'Neill.

"She is definitely one part of commanding this base that I am not going to miss," Weir said, and shook her head. "Do you think you'll be able to handle her?"

Jack smiled lazily. "Ya sure you betcha."

"Why do I not find that encouraging?"

Jack shrugged. "So, you heard the latest from Sam?"

Elizabeth nodded. "I have."

SG-1 had arrived at the place Illyria had identified as Boca Del Inferno. SG-3 had done the recon, given the all clear, and SG-1 had moved in with the survey team. They'd soon learn if there were any truth to the tale of Ancient technology buried beneath the ruins of Sunnydale.

In spite of himself, Brigadier General O'Neill wished that he were out there with them.

* * *

Faith sat up. Something was very off. Her room was dark, and the only sound was her own breathing. 

**FEAR DANGER DEATH**

The lights came on, and she realized that she wasn't in her room at all.

"What are you doing in my bed?" Dawn asked, folding her arms and staring imperiously down at the dark slayer as best a fourteen year old could.

Wait a minute... fourteen? Dawn hadn't been fourteen in - oh hell. She was dreaming.

"Sure you're dreaming, but that doesn't excuse you from being in my bed," Dawn said.

"Sorry," Faith replied, and stood up.

**FEAR DANGER DEATH**

Faith's heart began to race. "What the hell was that?" she asked.

Dawn shrugged. "You tell me. You're the Slayer."

Faith shook her head. "There was something there. Images. They went by too quickly to make them out."

"Why don't you slow them down, then?" Dawn asked innocently.

"If I knew how to do that, I'd have already done it."

"I guess you've got a problem, them."

"Guess so." Faith looked thoughtful. "So are you really here," she asked, "or are you just a part of the dream?"

Dawn shrugged. "Guess we'll find out when Dawn wakes up, won't we?"

"Yeah, whatev..." Faith trailed off as the world shifted around her.

**FEAR DANGER DEATH**

She stood suddenly before a great machine, its energies filling the grand cavern that housed it, refracting off of the gem-lined walls in brilliant streams of blue, green, and red.

"It is, perhaps, better this way," a familiar voice said.

**FEAR DANGER DEATH**

The world burned. Fire spread across its surface. Mountains were blasted to rubble, and the seas boiled to steam. Everywhere, everything was dying in agony. The demons. The vampires. The animals. A great black egg hung suspended in the sky, and all around it, vast celestial hosts did battle.

Faith had never seen an angel before. Not in all her long years as a Slayer. She'd seen demons of every size, shape, and configuration, sure. But never something like this.

Two hosts there were, each numbering in the billions. The one was vast, serene and primal, holding human form yet goodlier, more awful, more divine. The other host shrieked their hatred to the stars, and the stars winked out in response. There was no compassion in the visages of the other host. Less than human they seemed: full of blind hatred and rage.

'Oh shit. Am I seeing the fall of Lucifer?'

No. This was a thing to occur in the future, not the past. That at least, she was sure of. This is what WOULD occur. The heavenly hosts would do battle, and the world would burn.

Faith woke up, sat up, and shook her head in wonder.

A few minutes later, she was on the phone. "Giles? Yeah, it's me. Look, I know I wrote you guys off as assholes after what happened with Angel, but I just had a dream, and if what it showed is true, then something is about to happen that's a lot bigger than my beef with the rest of you..."

* * *

It was two days later when Illyria finally left the mountain. Thoroughly annoyed with the inaction on the front of getting either herself or the Groosalug involved with the mission of the SGC, she sought refuge outside its too-confining walls in the city of Colorado Springs. She knew not precisely what she was seeking in going there again, but she knew at least that she couldn't stand to be bound up between narrow concrete walls any longer. The guards had watched her nervously as she departed, and a unit had been assigned to tail her, as usual. She lost them within an hour of her departure from the base, also as usual. 

She did not go near the Pelian Spear, not wanting to risk a confrontation with the girl she had saved That Night. Instead, she found herself wandering through the frozen Colorado night towards the building where the Groosalug had been staying for the past few days.

"Old one," he said as she came through the door.

His was small room, and cramped. She could barely bring herself to step through the door. A bed, a bathroom, a sink, a television, a Groosalug, two chairs, and little else filled the narrow space. The Groosalug sat in one of the chairs, his attention rapt upon the videogame he was playing.

She sat in the other chair. "I have spoken to Doctor Weir on your behalf."

The Groosalug set down the controller and looked up. "And is there ought for the Groosalug to do besides waste his time on frivolous entertainments?"

"No," Illyria replied. "They have taken no action. They accept my help when it is convenient, but they ignore me all other times. Truly I begin to wonder if Stargate Command is worth my time."

Groosalug nodded. "Perhaps we would be better suited joining our efforts to the Vampire Slayer Faith."

"She is here?" Illyria asked.

"Indeed. She arrived several days previous. It was she that provided me with this room, using what she called 'Council Money.' She is staying across the hall."

Illyria nodded thoughtfully. "Perhaps I will see her before I return to the mountain. I owe her a great debt."

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. Although Faith was not the devil, there were some who would say that she was close enough that it didn't make much difference. At that moment, she came in through the door. "Hey Groo, you willing to make a trip..." she trailed off. "Bluebird. Thought you were getting all cozy with your new friends. Least that's what Groo here's been telling me."

"They want little to do with me, it seems," Illyria said.

Faith shrugged. "That's too bad. Listen, I can use all the help I can get - are either of you willing to come along for a little trip to the former Hellmouth?"

The old one and the champion both looked at Faith for a long moment. Of all the things she could have said, that was perhaps the most unexpected. It was Groo who spoke first. "Was it not destroyed?" he asked, his surprise at being asked this clearly evident in his voice.

Faith nodded. "Yeah, but I had a Slayer dream a few days back. Giles did some checking. Apparently, there is a..." she looked at Groo and Illyria expectantly.

"Prophecy," Illyria said, sounding both rather bored and immensely Fred-like.

"Prophecy," Faith confirmed, not sounding too pleased about it either. "This one says somethin' about 'those cast down' arising from a destroyed Hellmouth. Giles's version was way longer. But if that dream is anything to go by, it's going to be extremely apocalyptic if we don't stop it. There should be a few other Slayers there to back me up, but like I said, I'll need all the help I can get."

Illyria thought about that a moment. "I will go," she said at length.

Groo nodded. "If there is a danger rising from this place, I cannot ignore it. I too will go."

And so it was that some sixty minutes later, Faith, the Groosalug and Illyria were on board one of the Council's private jets, heading for California.

* * *

There are moments that define us in ways that we cannot begin to understand. Moments in which everything changes, and suddenly our lives are divided into what came before, and what came after. You don't know when such a moment is coming, but when it arrives, you know. Daniel Jackson had experienced such a moment in his ascension. Now, even after his return to a human existence, everything had changed. He knew things now, even half remembered and as barely conscious of that knowledge that he was, he knew things that had changed him. He was not now the same person he had been all those years ago when the Stargate program had first began, nor the same person that the Stargate program had made him into. 

He was something else, now.

And so it was that when he arrived at the site of the Sunnydale crater with the survey team, it was with a profound sense of unease.

The place felt wrong. Tainted.

Evil.

Even so, something here felt strangely familiar. Like an old tune half forgotten that had once been especially meaningful; like the unremembered memories of nursing at his mother's breast. Something here was calling to him. Something very familiar; it was on the very edge of his awareness, and if he could just listen for a few moments longer, he would surely know...

"Doctor Jackson?" one of the other members of the survey team asked.

Daniel blinked, and shook himself. He had not realized that he had been walking away from the group.

"Are you all right, Doctor Jackson?" the other man – Doctor Zelenka – asked worriedly.

"Yes, fine," he replied distractedly. "Is the equipment ready?"

Radek Zelenka nodded. "If there are any energy sources here, we'll soon know."

As the sun began to set over the destroyed Hellmouth, Doctor Jackson shivered, feeling as though someone had just walked over his grave.

The newly promoted Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter stood close at hand, with Teal'c at her side. SG-1 had joined SG-3 in providing security for Doctor Zelenka's survey team. The Sunnydale area had always been ignored by the media – this had not changed in the wake of the Los Angeles incident. People had not really believed the government explanation of what had happened in Los Angeles, and wild theories were being thrown about at a near fever pitch. Society was changing. As a whole, people were beginning to believe in monsters once again. The coolly analytical mindset of the scientist was growing unpopular, and more and more people were turning to mystics and quacks for answers.

All of that annoyed Carter to no end. There was a perfectly reasonable explanation for what had occurred in Los Angeles. The only problem was it was so very classified that it would never be revealed to the public, and the cover story boys had really failed to come through. Popular opinion had been swung towards the mystical, and as a result, people just weren't terribly interested in the activities of the military these days. It worked for their advantage, to be sure, but that didn't mean it was not incredibly annoying – especially to a scientifically minded woman like herself.

But that was neither here nor there. Shaking her head, Carter brought her attention back to the here and now. She had a mission to run.

And far away, in the depths of space, Baal smiled grimly. The time to strike was now. He was betting that a small strike force of cloaked cargo ships full of troops would be able to sneak past Earth's defenses – bypassing even the Ancient weapon, if it was still functional, land at the site he suspected the Ancient artifact was buried, and quickly retrieve it. It was worth the risk – succeed, and almost unlimited power would be his to command. Fail, and he would lose only a few dozen cargo-ships and a few hundred Jaffa.

Yes, the time to strike was now.

**End Chapter Seven**

**

* * *

**

Author's notes:

It was much shorter than most of the other parts, I know. With any luck, there will be more material to cover in the next few parts. Things are coming to a head, and we are not now very far away from the end.

As always, if you loved it or hated it, let me know - but more importantly, explain why.


	10. Such as Hearts Heroic Oftenest Win

Epigoni  
by P.H. Wise

An Angel crossover fanfic

Chapter 8 – Such as Hearts Heroic Oftenest Win

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel. I don't own Stargate. Please don't sue me. This story contains spoilers for the final episode of Angel.

----------------------------

Doctor Elizabeth Weir shook her head and marveled at the adventure her expedition was about to embark upon.

They had found it.  
Atlantis.

Now she stood at the very brink of the Stargate, about to step into another galaxy.

General O'Neill was there to see her off, but Daniel Jackson, the man who had made all this possible, was conspicuously absent. She had only barely managed to have Doctor Zelenka recalled from the Sunnydale investigation in time to join her team, but now, they were all here, and all ready to go.

When the President had called her, it seemed like years ago now, she'd had no idea that it would lead to something like this. Atlantis!

If someone had told her that she would never see Earth again, she would not have been surprised. They all knew going into it that this was probably a one-way trip. But they had never in their wildest dreams suspected that this expedition would become the last hope for the survival of the Tau'ri.

Side by side with Colonel Sumner, she stepped through the gate. With all her expedition behind her, she stepped through the gate.

-----------------------------

No one would have thought that the establishment of an archeological dig site at the place where Sunnydale once stood would bring about the Apocalypse. Well, unless they're us. But most people wouldn't think so, and most certainly didn't. Certainly not Daniel Jackson, who was crouched in front of a portable sensor array. Doctor Zelenka was gone now, recalled to the SGC for the Atlantis mission. But Doctor Jackson knew how to work the device well enough. It pinged, and he blinked. Now THAT was unexpected. There were residual energy readings on every part of the Sunnydale crater. There was also, however, a single location at which they were concentrated.

"What do you have, Daniel?" Carter asked as she shielded her eyes from the light of the setting sun.

"We were right. There IS something here. The strongest concentration of energy is about two hundred meters below the surface in the center of the crater."

Teal'c stepped forward, glancing down at the readout and raising a brow. "Indeed."

Doctor Jackson reached the crater's center several minutes later. "Sam! Teal'c! There's a stairwell here. I'm going in!"

He disappeared from the realm of light and sky. A few moments later, Teal'c and Carter followed him in.

Some miles away, Groo sat as comfortably as could be expected in the passenger compartment of the Council's private jet. He very pointedly did not look down. For all that he had been in this world for many years now, he still could not abide these metal birds that the cows insisted on using to fly from place to place. Not that he was frightened. No, the Groosalug was not one to be frightened of flying. His pale face was the result of a lack of sunlight, and his hands were clutching the seats not because he was afraid but because he was exercising. Yes, that was it.

OK, so maybe he was just a little bit afraid of flying.

Faith sat in the chair across from his, helping herself to a few swigs out of a miniature whiskey bottle. Illyria was at her side, her expression unreadable. They sat there in silence, for what was there to be said? All three of them knew where they were going.

The Hellmouth.

They were going to the Hellmouth.

He had heard stories of such things, but in all his years, the Groosalug had never actually visited one. And now, here he was, on his way to the remains of the Hellmouth.

And for all his fright, as the jet drew nearer and nearer to the blasted Hellmouth, Groo couldn't help but feel as though he was coming home.

The chains of causation had well and truly bound them, Human and Goa'uld, Slayer, half-breed, and Old One.

It came about so strangely - So silently. The cargo ships full of Jaffa glided smoothly down through the earth's atmosphere, each one concealed beneath its own cloaking device, bending the light around their frames. They set down in the Sunnydale crater without even so much as a cloud of dust announcing their presence.

Yet their presence was marked.

There, in the shadows of the ruin, an unquiet spirit dwelt, seething with rage, watching impotently as these intruders set foot upon its domain.

The very shadows seemed to writhe.

----------------------

"What do you seek in the dust, Daniel?" Sha're asked as she stepped out of the shadows.

Daniel Jackson was crouched over a broken metal seal at the bottom of the stairwell that looked like it might have once covered the entrance to this place, and when he heard the voice of his dead wife, he nearly leaped out of his skin, and that was before he recognized it; a voice coming unexpectedly out of the darkness in a tomb-like atmosphere is startling at the best of times. He hit his head on the wall, yelped, grabbed his head, and hissed in pain.

A moment later, it occurred to him exactly who had spoken to him, and he turned towards her, barely able to believe his eyes. And there she was in all her glory: his Sha're, right down to the playful look in her eyes. Dark and lovely, clad in simple Abydonian clothing; his heart ached to look at her.

The sound of Teal'c and Carter descending the stone stairwell echoed behind him.

"Sha're?" he asked.

She smiled.

"Find anything?" Carter asked as she reached the bottom.

Daniel gestured towards Sha're.

"What?" Carter asked.

Daniel frowned, and then looked. Sha're was gone. He grew distressed. "She was here, Sam."

"Who?"

"Sha're. She was standing right here."

Teal'c raised an eyebrow, and Sam looked at Daniel carefully. "Are you feeling OK, Daniel?" she asked.

He grew visibly confused and glanced about. "I don't know."

"We can do this another time," Sam began.

"No. We're here now. I can do this." Daniel said.

Sam and Teal'c both nodded, though their concerned looks did not fade.

"I found this," Daniel said, and gestured to the broken seal. "I'm not sure what it is, but it has writing on it. I don't recognize the language."

Teal'c spoke up, then. "Would it not be prudent to explore our surroundings before we begin any detailed study of artifacts?"

As much as he wanted to examine the seal, Daniel found he couldn't argue with that line of reasoning. He nodded, and they moved out from the bottom of the stairwell and into the main cavern.

Much of the cavern appeared to be caved in. It was only a small miracle that had prevented this particular part of it from collapsing. Before them was a ledge overlooking a narrow shaft. It might have been a very large pit once, but it's mostly filled with rock and rubble now. Near the edge of the ledge was a small pile of dust and ashes, and on the left hand side, another rock stairway that descended further into darkness.

Standing at the top of the stairway, Daniel felt the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. There was a sense of watchfulness here, and he was almost sure that he could see the dim outline of Sha're at the bottom of the flight of stone steps. He didn't call out; he didn't trust his eyes. The flashlights mounted on their P-90s didn't penetrate very far into the gloom. If he didn't know better, Daniel would have sworn that the darkness was resisting the giving up of its secrets to the light.

They went down. Down and down. After they'd been following the stairway for nearly ten minutes, Sam shook her head. "How much further does it go?" she asked rhetorically.

Daniel answered anyways. "I don't know. It has to end somewhere, though."

"Indeed," said Teal'c.

Finally, after fifteen minutes of slow descent into the very heart of the shattered Hellmouth, they saw a light in the distance: a faint silvery sort of sheen. And then the stairway opened out into a great cavern, this one fully intact. The whole of the cavern was lit with a soft, silvery illumination like moonlight. Wending their way across the winding path to the source of that light, they finally saw what had drawn them here. They finally saw the source of the energy their instruments had detected.

It was a grand machine affixed to the far wall, perhaps twenty metres high, reaching nearly to the roof of the cavern, and it shone like the moon.

Daniel stared.

--------------------

Colonel Reynolds, the CO of SG-3, neither knew nor cared of strange machines buried beneath the Sunnydale crater. What he did care about was getting the hell out of here as soon as possible. Unfortunately, that wasn't an option at the moment, as his team had been assigned to assist SG-1.

This place was damned creepy. He had learned long ago to trust his instincts, and right now his instincts told him he was being watched. He signed to the others to take cover.

No sooner had he ducked behind a piece of debris when a staff-blast went straight through the spot his head had just vacated. Following the line of the sound with his eyes, he quickly saw the source of the blast, and he swore.

Jaffa. Lots of Jaffa.

Shit.

"Look alive, Marines!" he roared over the sound of incoming plasma bolts.

Battle was joined, and soon, the air was full of the smell of gunfire as four P-90s barked out their responseto the staff-blasts. He knew that there were too many to fight head on. There had to be a hundred Jaffa out there, and SG-3 was only four men. But they were the marine combat team, this was their home world, and by God but they were going to give the Jaffa what for. He quickly formulated a plan. "Covering fire!" he called, and two marines sprayed bullets towards the Jaffa as he and Penhall retreated from the squad of Baal's servants. After they had retreated some ten meters, they stopped and provided their own covering fire as the two who had initially been firing retreated. Finally, the marines stopped firing. It was night, and the Jaffa could no longer make their positions.

Colonel Reynolds gave a few hand-signs to his men, and they each donned their night vision goggles and vanished into the darkness.

-------------------

Even as they approached the machine, Carter's Asgard communication device began to glow. An instant later, Colonel Reynolds's voice came through, loud and clear. "Colonel Reynolds to Colonel Carter."

"Carter here," she said.

"Sir, we have a foothold situation up here. I estimate at least a hundred, possibly two hundred Jaffa. Request immediate assistance."

Carter's eyes widened ever so slightly, and she exchanged glances with Teal'c. "Teal'c and I are on our way. Doctor Jackson's found something here. It might be what the Jaffa are here for. We have to hold them until help can arrive."

"How exactly would you suggest we do that, sir? We may be the best, but we're a four-man team."

"Be creative, Colonel. We'll do the same."

"Creative. Roger. Over and out." The sarcasm in Reynolds's voice was thick.

She glanced at Teal'c. "Any ideas?"

Teal'c nodded. "Many. The Jaffa will attempt to crush all opposition through the direct application of overwhelming force. This may work to our advantage if we can lure them into an area of the crater where they cannot make use of their numerical advantage."

Daniel spoke up. "And while you two are fighting off an army, I should be...?"

Sam gestured to the machine.

"Ah."

They moved out. As they ascended the stairs, Carter activated the Asgard communications device and gave a quick report to the SGC. By the time Sam and Teal'c arrived at the surface, the Prometheus was on its way, escorted by a full squadron of F302s.

----------------------

An old jeep screeched to a halt at the edge of the Sunnydale crater, and immediately Illyria stepped clear of the vehicle. The smell of the sea hung heavily in the air, and the roar of the ocean was loud. They had parked at the very edge of the beach, and the remains of the Sunnydale docks could be seen a few miles distant. Even as Faith and Groo gathered their weapons from the back of the jeep, Illyria moved to the edge of the crater and looked down. So this was the remains of the Hellmouth. The Gateway between worlds.

It did not impress her. "Is this truly all that remains of the Gateway?" she asked. "I had thought it would be more impressive. More than," she gestured at the rubble-strewn crater, "this."

"Sorry to disappoint you, Princess," Faith said as she moved up beside Illyria, a hunting bow in hand, a sword at her side, and a quiver full of arrows slung over her shoulder, "But what you see is what you get."

Groo joined them a moment later, and he too looked down into the shattered Hellmouth, and the three of them stood in silence for a few moments.

"Well," said Faith, "I don't see any celestial armies dukin' it out overhead. I guess we're early."

"How disappointing," Illyria said. "I had hoped to test the mettle of these 'higher be...'" she trailed off, and tilted her head to the side slightly. Her ear twitched.

"Something up, Bluebird?" Faith asked.

"Something stirs. It is... familiar."

At that moment, the sounds of gunfire and staff-blasts echoed across the rubble-strewn crater. The three Champions exchanged glances.

"Guess that's our signal," Faith said. "Let's kick some ass."

Together, the descended into Sunnydale.

----------------------

Daniel studied the inscriptions on the machine as carefully as he could, comparing them with his notes on the Ancient language. He wished that Jack were here. Sure, Jack probably wouldn't be interested in what he was looking at, but at least then he'd have someone to talk to about it. It was certainly fascinating, though. Thus far he had managed to decipher the words 'warning, great machine, and ascension.' It was the last word that had truly excited him. If this machine did what he thought it did...

His thoughts were interrupted by Sha're's voice. "It is beautiful, my Daniel."

Daniel did not turn to regard his dead wife. He continued working.

"Are you ignoring me?" she asked a few moments later.

Daniel nodded. "I've decided that I'm hallucinating. There's no point talking to a hallucination."

Sha're laughed. "But you just did, Daniel."

"Did what?" he asked distractedly.

"Talked to me." Her laugh faded into an impish smile.

Daniel immediately shut his mouth and resumed his study of the Machine.

Sha're did not leave, and for fifteen minutes he worked in silence, intensely aware of her eyes upon him, barely able to concentrate for the distraction she proved to be. 'No,' Daniel thought, 'it definitely isn't easy concentrating when your dead wife is standing behind you.'

Finally, she spoke again. "Have you figured it out?"

"Figured what out?"

"What it's for."

He shook his head. "Something about Ascension. I can only assume that this was somehow used in the Ancients' research in that field. Maybe it... measures your potential to ascend."

"You are close, Daniel."

"And I suppose you know what it's for?"

"Why do you think that I am a hallucination?"

Daniel turned and met her gaze. "You died," he said simply.

"I did. But do you really think that death is the end?"

"The Ancients seem to think so."

"Don't be foolish, my Daniel. The Ascended Ancients have never experienced death, never seen beyond the veil. For all their knowledge and enlightenment, they know nothing of what lies beyond unless they should become corporeal and die, but if that should happen, they cannot return and tell the others what they have learned. Death is closed to them."

Daniel frowned. She was telling the truth; of that much he was certain. He didn't remember much from his time as one of the Ascended, but her words rang true. "So you're a ... ghost? Some sort of incorporeal spirit?" he asked.

"No. I am so much more than that now. Don't you see?"

"Uh, no. Definitely not seeing." He considered her form for a moment and then said, "Well, actually I am, and it worries me."

She smiled at him. "When I died, I become so much more than I had ever known before. My tiny experiences joined with something greater. Something... beyond words."

Daniel took off his glasses. "That doesn't sound so different from Ascension."

"I wouldn't know," she said.

"So what lies beyond death is...?"

Her smile widened. "Me."

It felt wrong. Very, very wrong. He didn't know how just yet, but something was not of the good here. Still, he didn't confront her with his suspicion. Instead, he asked, "What does the machine do?"

"Use it, and find out."

He almost laughed. Almost. "I don't think so." He went back to his examination of the machine.

A few minutes later, Daniel's eyes widened, and he stared at the machine in shock. He glanced at her, and she only nodded.

"Ascension?" he said, unable to quite believe what he had read on the now translated inscription.

"Not just for the individual, my Daniel, but for everyone." She sounded almost... eager. "A planetary Ascension."

Daniel shuddered. "It would be..."

"Beautiful!" she interrupted. "Think of it, Daniel. No more pain. No more suffering. Eternal enlightenment and joy for every human being!"

"I was going to say terrible. They're not ready for that, Sha're. Not most of them, anyways. Can you imagine what would happen if an immature race ascended en masse? Those that are ready to ascend should be able to reach it on their own."

She sneered, and it detracted from her beauty. "The rules were not much use to you when you were Ascended. Why do you cling to them now? Now when you have the chance to change everything? To make all the wrong things right, and secure the salvation of humanity?"

His eyes narrowed. That didn't sound much like Sha're. He met her gaze and spoke, though he was fearful of the answer. "Who are you?" he said.

------------------------

Their plan worked, at first. They found an easily defensible choke point in the rubble-strewn crater that had been Sunnydale, lured the Jaffa to it, and turned the whole thing into a crap-shoot. Sam, Teal'c, and SG-3 opened fire, and for a few minutes, it was like Armageddon in that narrow passage near the pile of rubble that had once been Sunnydale high. Nearly twenty Jaffa died in the first few seconds before a merciless stream of armor-piercing bullets. Twenty more fell before they had time to take cover of their own, and there was little of it to be had.

The Jaffa returned fire, but could hit little. SGs one and three were all behind solid cover, and although staff-blasts rained down around them, they did not find their mark.

It's the little things that tend to trip you up. A few stray pebbles starts an avalanche. One snowflake too many, and the whole mountain side falls on you.

It was such a small thing. Colonel Reynolds's P90 jammed. He dropped it and drew a pistol. When the P90 hit the ground, it went off, and the spray of bullets destroyed what was left of the wooden support beam that was holding up the chunk of stone he was taking cover behind. He barely had time to yell out a surprised, "Oh shit!" before the masonry collapsed, and he was exposed to enemy fire.

His team tried to cover him.

They failed.

He took a staff-blast to the face, and collapsed in a heap.

Then a Jaffa had time to produce a grenade and hurl it at another member of SG-3. It was of Jaffa make, and did not kill him, but the blinding flash and stunning effects were more than enough to allow the other Jaffa to swarm his position. The last thing he saw was the reverse end of a staff heading directly towards his face.

The other two members of SG-3 were not far behind. Staff-blasts found their mark, and in seconds, Sam and Teal'c were surrounded.

Sam shivered involuntarily as she heard the sound of a charging staff weapon from behind her. She would have turned, except there was another one in front of her, pointed at her face.

"Drop your weapons and surrender!" ordered an angry Jaffa with the symbol of Baal etched onto his forehead.

Sam slowly lowered her P90 to the ground.

"Shol'va, drop your weapon!" the Jaffa said.

Teal'c stood his ground.

"Do you desire death this day, Shol'va?"

Teal'c smiled grimly. "I die free."

The Jaffa leveled his staff-weapon at Teal'c and prepared to fire, and in that moment, an axe embedded itself in the back of the Jaffa's skull. He jerked visibly, and a look of confusion settled upon his face. Even as he reached back to feel the axe, he fell over. An instant later, two other Jaffa fell with arrows sticking out of their throats.

Illyria, Groo, and Faith had arrived; once again, battle was joined.

END CHAPTER 8

--------------

Author's Notes:  
This was probably the hardest chapter to write out of all of them. I knew exactly what was going to happen, but actually putting it on the page was like agony. Some days, I the best I could manage in a day's work was a paragraph – two if I was lucky. It's very rough, but at least it's finally on paper.


	11. Day of Wrath

Epigoni  
by P.H. Wise

An Angel crossover fanfic

Chapter 9 – Day of Wrath

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel. I don't own Stargate. Please don't sue me. This story contains spoilers for the final episode of Angel.

----------------------------

_This is the end  
Beautiful friend  
This is the end  
My only friend, the end  
Of our elaborate plans, the end  
Of everything that stands, the end  
No safety or surprise, the end  
I'll never look into your eyes...again_

_This is the end_

- The Doors, _'The End'_

----------------------------

The three supernaturally empowered warriors charged into battle, and everything erupted into chaos. Faith let loose with another arrow, then ducked to avoid a staff blast, and cut a Jaffa in half with her sword; his armor was no match for Slayer strength paired with an enchanted blade. Illyria plowed through her enemies by sheer brute force, every blow visibly denting armor, crushing ribs, shattering jaws, or breaking arms or legs. Mangled Jaffa fell all around her as she went forth like a goddess of war. The Groosalug tore his battle-axe free of the Jaffa he had flung it at and promptly buried it in the gut of the one standing behind Teal'c and Carter.

That was more than enough prompting for the two members of SG-1; they were up and fighting in an instant. A dozen Jaffa were dead or dying in less than thirty seconds of combat. Teal'c took a staff-blast to the shoulder, and although it forced him to drop his staff-weapon, it did not drop him.

The Jaffa began to concentrate their fire on Illyria. Staff-blast after staff-blast rained down on her mixed with concentrated zat fire, and yet she was unphased. She strode through the firestorm uncaring, proud and strong, allowing her battle-instinct to come to the fore once more as it had not done since the fight behind the Hyperion. She could sense the desperation of her foes growing, and she reveled in it.

And then her world exploded in pain.

When their standard weapons had no effect, the Jaffa had brought out the heavier weaponry. Several now carried Goa'uld cannons in their arms, all of which were leveled at her. She looked down at her stomach, and saw that her flesh was badly burned. She was leaking.

"Where the hell did you come from?" Sam finally managed to ask over the din of battle.

"Run now, talk later!" Faith replied. "Bluebird, we're getting out of here. Let's go!"

Sam led the way, with Teal'c and Groo and Faith close behind, dashing for the stairwell some fifty yards away that led down into the depths of the Hellmouth.

Had she been as she was when she first absorbed Winifred Burkle, Illyria might have fought there until either she was dead or all of her enemies had fallen. But she was not that creature anymore. Satisfied that her comrades were on their way to safety, she dashed for the stairwell and bounded down it after them, with the Jaffa in close pursuit.

Even as the Jaffa poured down the stairwell and into the Hellmouth after them, the Prometheus came roaring in over the horizon, accompanied by a full squadron of F302s. Cover-ups could be dealt with later; a foothold situation could not be allowed to continue, especially not one so close to a major metropolitan area. All told, about half of the surviving Jaffa made it into the stairwell before the F302s began making strafing runs. Explosions rocked the Sunnydale crater as missiles and rail gun ammunition streamed out from the Earth ships, wiping out groups of Jaffa left and right.

And then one of the F302s exploded as a Tel'tak decloaked behind it and opened fire.

Tel'taks were supposed to be unarmed, but Baal had planned this action for a long time. He had refitted two dozen odd Tel'taks with weaponry comparable to a Death Glider's. Although they were no match for the F302s in ship to ship combat, when you combined their McGuyvered armament with their cloaking ability, they became a formidable vessel.

Over the skies of Sunnydale, battle was joined.

--------------------

Faith stopped short when they reached the site of the final battle with the First. The realization of where they were hit her like a sledgehammer, and her eyes widened in near-panic. It was hard to see by the light of the two P90 mounted flashlights, but this was definitely the place. She produced a flashlight of her own, and shone it about.

She could smell death in this place.

There, in the corner, Chao-ahn's body still lay half-crushed beneath the rocks. Nearby, Amanda lay dead. Both bodies were badly decayed.

Faith grimaced. "That explains the smell, I guess," she said, and the words sounded hollow.

If there were other bodies present, they were buried beneath the rubble that filled the greater part of the cave.

Then a plasma bolt struck the ground near where she was standing. The Jaffa were getting close. It was time to move.

They retreated down the second stairwell.

----------------------

"Who are you?"

Daniel's words hung heavily in the dank, stagnant air of the cavern, echoing strangely in the space until it seemed as though it were spoken by a fading chorus of his own voice. He held her gaze, and he felt afraid.

Sha're smiled. "Not buying it? Fair enough. There are others."

"Who are you?" he asked again.

Her form shimmered briefly, and Sha're's features melted into a new form. A short blonde girl stood before him, sad-eyed and a little on the skinny side, but lovely nonetheless. "I'm the thing the Darkness fears, little man."

He raised an eyebrow. "You don't look much like the thing the darkness fears to me."

She looked down at her form. "You'd be surprised how much the things that dwell in darkness fear this form. I wear it now because it suits me." She met his gaze again. "Don't ask questions you don't want to hear the answer to, Doctor Jackson."

He rolled his eyes. "Let me guess. You're a god. Or at least, you like people to think so."

"Oh please. I am as far beyond a god as you are beyond an ant."

"Why do you want the human race to ascend?"

"They're ready for the next step."

Daniel gave her a speculative look. "And what is that next step?"

She only smiled and said nothing.

A moment later, Faith, Illyria, Sam, Teal'c and the Groosalug came rushing into the cavern. For the moment, the Jaffa were not pursuing, allowing them some time to catch their collective breath.

"OK, so talk. Who are you? How did you fall in with these two?" Carter asked Faith the moment she was able.

"Hi Sam," Daniel called, a little bit irked at having been ignored.

"Hi Daniel," Sam replied absently, looking directly at Faith.

"Name's Faith. They're friends of a friend." Faith glanced towards Daniel, and then went slightly bug-eyed when she saw who was standing next to him.

"B?" she asked.

The First smiled brightly. "Hey there, Faithy. Miss me?"

Daniel spoke up. "Whoever you think she is, it's not her. She's..."

"The First," Faith finished, suddenly very, very pale.

Daniel quirked an eyebrow at that, but said nothing.

"But we killed you!" Faith said.

Illyria and Groo both turned to regard the form of Buffy Summers, unsure of exactly how to respond.

"Aw, Come on, Faith. You didn't really think that little old me would be done in by a cheap lightshow, did you? I'd expected better from you. Sure, you brought down my army, but you can't destroy me. I am eternal."

Faith tried very hard not to grind her teeth.

"I'm not really here to talk to you, though."

"Then what do you want?"

The First shrugged. "Be seeing you," she said, and vanished.

"OK," said Sam, "What was that?"

"Long story," said Faith.

"Make it quick, because a hundred Jaffa are about to come pouring down that passageway."

Faith gave Carter an appraising look. "Short and sweet, huh? I can do that. Here's the sitch: she's an incorporeal bitch who tried to destroy the world, once. She's bad news, and I helped some friends take her down a peg or two a few years back. What'd she want this time?"

"For me to activate that machine."

"Huh. What's it do?"

Daniel grimaced. "Causes every man woman and child to ascend to a state of existence that almost all of them aren't ready for yet."

Faith blinked. That was certainly new.

"An ascension machine?" Carter asked, her mind clearly racing at the thought. "Is that possible?"

"Apparently," Daniel said.

"You gonna tell me what the hell a Jaffa is?" Faith asked.

Carter glanced at Teal'c, then at Daniel. "It's classified," she said.

This time, Faith did not refrain from grinding her teeth.

Further conversation was cut off by the sound of approaching Jaffa. Carter signaled to Daniel and Teal'c, who took up positions around what cover they could find to cover the entrance to the cavern.

It was then that it occurred to Faith that neither Groo nor Illyria had said a word in a while now. She looked their way, and immediately cursed. Both were still standing perfectly still where they had stopped some twenty feet away from the Great Machine, staring blankly into space.

"Yo Bluebird! Heads up!" she called.

No reaction.

"Groo, you with us?"

Groo didn't so much as twitch.

"Damn it," Faith muttered.

And then the sound of gunfire and staff-blasts filled the chamber.

----------------------------

Even as the image of Buffy vanished, the form of Winifred Burkle stepped out of the shadows.

"You... you are what I sensed on the edge of the crater," Illyria said, regarding the image of her former self quizzically.

"Sure am."

"If you had wished to throw me off of my guard, why take this form? Why not his?"

The First smiled. "You can lie to the others, but you'll never be able to lie to me. I know who you are, Winifred."

Illyria flinched. "I am not her."

"You could be. You could be her, with parents that love you, and a whole bright shiny future ahead of you." The First's smile took on a knowing air. "You could bring Wesley back. You could be a mother."

Illyria swallowed heavily, and a deep, desperate yearning rose up within her. For Wesley. For her lost humanity. For her family. For all the children she would never have. Unless... "If I were to ascend..."

"If you were to ascend, the Universe itself would bend to your whim. Even Death would have no choice but to open up its doors at your command. You could be a goddess to the gods once more, with your Wesley at your side. Think of it, Winifred. Think of it, Illyria. All you have ever desired is within your grasp. All you need do is reach out at take it. Activate the machine."

Illyria glanced at the machine, and it occurred to her then that it was beautiful. So very, unspeakably beautiful. "Why should I believe you?" she whispered.

"I have no reason to lie. You were an Old One, once. You understand what Ascension means."

"You speak of the path that the Others followed. Those that came before."

The First in Fred's guise nodded. "They were the first. They showed the way. Will you follow?"

With great difficulty, Illyria met the First's gaze. She visibly gathered her strength, forcibly pushing down every want and need and desire she had ever had. Her desire to be with Wesley again. Her desire to be human again. Her desire to be an Old One again. Her desire to be loved and accepted. Her desire to be feared and worshipped. Her desire to be a mother. All of it, she pushed down and cast as far away as she could, and said. "You lie."

The First's eyes narrowed.

"I will not destroy this world for you. I recognize you now, Angra Mainyu. You worshipped us once. Though I have been brought low, I have not been brought so low as to worship one who was once my servant." Illyria strode forward. "The First Evil indeed. We were beyond good and evil; primal forces of destruction incarnate upon the Earth. I remember the day of your birth, Az. You were a mewling, pathetic thing, then. We let you live because your shrieks amused us, and a mewling, pathetic thing you remain. I will not be beholden to you now. Be gone!"

The First's spell shattered.

---------------------

"What's wrong with them?" Carter asked as she ducked to avoid another volley of staff blasts. The smell of smoke filled the cavern, and she knew that if this kept up, the air would quickly become unbreathable.

"Hell if I know," Faith said. She had acquired a staff of her own in the confusion, taken from the body of a dead Jaffa. She was surprisingly good with it, especially when you considered that she had never held one before.

"They appear to be in some sort of trance, ColonelCarter," Teal'c said.

Several staff-blasts struck Illyria in the back. She did not react.

Nearly a dozen dead Jaffa were piled up at the entrance to the cavern when they finally stopped coming down.

Lieutenant Colonel Carter almost breathed a sigh of relief. But she knew better. This wasn't the moment when things got better. This was the moment when everything went straight to hell.

A small metallic sphere came bouncing down the stairwell and rolled to a stop halfway between herself and Daniel.

"Oh, hell," she said.

And then the Jaffa grenade went off, and the world dissolved in a haze of light and pain.

-----------------------

"Groo," Cordelia said as she stepped out of the shadows, smiling warmly. She was clad all in white, and the Groosalug's heart leapt at the sight of her.

"My Princess?" he asked, barely daring to hope that it might actually be her.

"Why have you come here, Groo?" she asked.

He told her. He told her about Faith's dream of the end of the world. Told her of the War in the Heavens. Told her of the battle that had already been fought. And then... "I missed you, Princess. I tried to avenge you, but I was too late. Too late... how is it that you are here before me?"

"In strange aeons, even death may die."

"I do not understand."

She smiled and gave him a look that made his heart beat faster. "The Powers That Be owe me big time."

Nearly overcome with emotion, he reached out to embrace her... and his heart sank as he watched his hands pass right through her form.

"I've come to warn you, Groo. Don't let them destroy the Great Machine. It holds the world's salvation."

Groo met her gaze, his eyes full of love. "Our salvation?" he asked.

"That machine has the power to make all of humanity... perfect. To take us all to a higher level of being, where all the wrong things are made right. All that pain, all that suffering, it could all be over! Groo, you could bring Paradise to earth."

He looked at her, and he thought for a long moment, and remained silent.

"You have to have seen it. The Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart. Feeding on man's inhumanity towards man. Turning the earth into their Hell one act of cruelty at a time. Here, on Pylea, there is nowhere that the cannot reach. You know as well as I do that it's going to take something drastic to claw them out of the human heart, and honey, you're looking at it." She pointed to the machine. "Presented with true enlightenment, how could human beings not cast off their hatred and their pettiness, and become perfect?"

A still, small voice cried out within him. 'No,' it called, 'No, Groo, don't listen to her! It's a lie! It isn't me! It isn't...' he ruthlessly crushed that voice.

"What must I do?"

The First smiled.

---------------------

Illyria hissed in pain as another staff-blast struck her already wounded side. It rankled that she had allowed the First to render her senseless for such a long amount of time, but now she was here, and these Jaffa would know her displeasure.

Colonel Carter was insensate, lying sprawled out behind the rock that had provided her cover. Teal'c and Faith were still holding off the Jaffa, albeit barely, and on the verge of being overwhelmed. Daniel Jackson clutched his head some distance away, unable to stand.

That was when Illyria noticed that the Groosalug was making for the machine.

The Jaffa were forgotten. All of her attention focused on him. She moved. Time slowed around her as she moved. Nearly instantly, she was between Groo and the machine. "What are you doing, Groo?" she asked. "The fight is the other way."

She looked into his eyes, and she saw the First looking back.

"You will not stop me from saving this world," he said, and his voice was like steel.

A stray staff-blast struck him then, but had no more effect on him than it would have on her when she was at her strongest.

"This is not the way, Groo. She lies. She is not who she pretends to be."

Groo attacked. She barely managed to duck underneath his initial combination of punches, and although she fought with all the skill and power that was hers to command, nothing seemed to phase him. She was injured, and he had been empowered by the First Evil for this task. She freely slowed and accelerated the flow of time around her, dealing blow after devastating blow; blows that would have crushed every bone in the body of a normal human to powder. Although the Groosalug was no normal human, even empowered by the First Evil, her blows began to take their toll.

He decided to end this fight.

Groo's fist finally connected with Illyria's chest, and she went flying backwards into the cavern wall, her chest visibly dented, and leaking blood.

Gasping, she rose to her feet. Of to the side, she saw Daniel Jackson turning to look at the Groosalug.

Groo put his hands on the machine and began pressing a series of glyphs. Each one shone brightly as his hands left it.

Daniel's eyes widened. "NO!"

Illyria surged to her feet and crossed the room in less than a second, but even for all of that, she was too slow.

Too slow.

She tore the Groosalug's hand away from the machine even as he pressed the last glyph. And the machine's energies began to gather.

"What have you done?" she hissed.

He smiled sadly. "It is better this way, Illyria. Once they have grasped perfection, they will see."

Her vision went red, and she felt a rage like she had never felt in all of the long years of her life, neither as human nor as Old One. In one swift, terrible motion, she reached out and snapped the Groosalug's neck.

He fell bonelessly to the floor, staring up at her with disbelieving eyes. Dead.

She sank to her knees, and began to weep.

--------------------------

All eyes in the room turned to the machine as those few surviving Jaffa stopped firing to stare in wonder at this new threat.

Daniel rose to his feet. "We have to stop this. NOW."

Carter looked at Daniel. "How?"

He rushed to the machine, and the Jaffa made no move to stop him. After a moment of examining the glyphs, he cursed. "There's no way to shut it off!"

"Then why don't we do it the old fashioned way?" Faith asked as she brandished her staff-weapon.

The Jaffa began to run.

Carter pulled out a small Asgard scanning device, activated it, and then shook her head. "That would never produce enough energy to disrupt the machine's quantum matrix," Carter said.

Faith looked at her. "Huh?"

Teal'c removed his backpack and began pulling out blocks of C4. "ColonelCarter, would this be sufficient?"

The machine's energy continued to build, with the glow now almost too bright to look at.

Carter looked at the C4 for a long moment, and then nodded. "There's a very small chance that if we place the C4 correctly, the resulting explosion will disrupt the forming quantum matrix and disperse the energy back into the surrounding environment."

"That sounds bad," said Daniel.

Carter nodded. "If it works, all of us will be dead. But if it saves the world..."

"Let's get to work," Faith said.

The others nodded.

They went to work, and frantically. The machine's energy continued to build. It was now too bright to look at, and a loud hum filled the cavern. Distantly, it occurred to Sam that it sounded like a choir.

Finally, with all the explosives placed, the group gathered around the detonator.

Daniel smiled at his team-mates. "Good working with you," he said.

"Indeed," said Teal'c, "It has been an honor to fight at your side."

"See you on the other side," Faith said.

Carter pushed the button.

There was a thunderous roar as the C4 detonated violently. Only Illyria saw what happened next: how things did not go according to plan; how the energies of the machine actually absorbed the explosions back into itself.

A cataclysmic pulse of energy surged out from the machine, passing through stone and earth and rubble, out and across the entire world and back.

And every man, woman, and child across the face of the earth began to Ascend.

-----------------------------

Daniel. Teal'c. Carter. Faith. The Jaffa. Jack O'Neill. General Hammond. Buffy. Willow. Xander. Giles. Kennedy. Vi. Fred and Trish Burkle. Gwen Raiden. Every human, everywhere on the earth.

Except for Dawn.

Dawn Summers watched in horror as the bodies of her friends and loved ones dissolved into light.

"BUFFY!" she screamed, reaching for her sister.

Her hands passed through the air where Buffy had been, and she fell to the ground, wracked with despair.

Above the Hellmouth, Colonel Pendergrast ordered an emergency jump to hyperspace even as the energy pulse surged towards the Prometheus. Two F302s were caught in the pulse. Deprived of their pilots in the middle of a dive, they hit the ground hard and exploded. The others escaped into hyperspace.

More and more, ever and upward. The whole earth began to glow with the light of the Ascended. Humanity was lifted up to true enlightenment, and for one shining moment, they were Perfect.

------------------

Illyria knelt alone in the cavern, lit only by the light of the fallen flashlights of her comrade. The machine had gone dormant, its glow gone out. She'd felt something when the energy was released... a tugging on her soul, but it passed, and she remained. She clutched at her head and screamed.

The First Evil began to laugh.

-------------------

For one shining moment, humanity was perfect.

And then they began to quarrel.

Two abusive parents ascended, and their abuse did not stop for Ascension. Angrily, they lashed out at their children, now with cosmic forces at their command. But their children were no longer helpless. They too commanded these new powers, and fought back, tooth and nail.

A serial killer ascended. A petty child ascended in the middle of a temper tantrum, and a mountainside was reduced to glass. All of humanity's worst instincts began to boil to the surface. The earth burns beneath man's touch as he ascends; and every petty argument shatters mountains, burns forests, turns deserts to glass, and reduces great cities to rubble.

They began to reach beyond the earth.

Stars winked out. Entire solar systems were destroyed as mankind walked amongst the stars. Some meant well; Jack O'Neill stretched out his hand, and the Goa'uld, all Goa'uld, everywhere, died. Most did not mean well. Most were consumed by the same pettiness that had dominated their earthly lives. Humanity made war upon itself, and upon the cosmos. Only a few, those who had been ready to ascend, stepped back from the conflict and embraced the joy that was theirs in Perfection.

But the Ancients were not idle. In the face of such a huge disruption of the natural order by Ascended beings, they had no choice but to act. They descended upon the earth like the stroke of doom, and the entire planet erupted in the wake of their anger. The meeting of the ascended humans and the ascended ancients was like the collision of twin supernovas. The oceans boiled, and continental plates were shattered like glass. Celestial armies clashed in the heavens; but the ancients had the advantage. The humans were greater in number, but they fought amongst themselves, and lacked the experience to fight such a battle effectively. Humanity was overcome, and the celestial bodies of defeated humanity, hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky, rained down upon the broken earth like falling stars.

It is said that the mind can make a hell of heaven, or a heaven of hell. Vanity. But it was with such words that those few who survived attempted to comfort themselves as they lay in abject misery, cast out of paradise a second time, and with no one to blame but themselves.

END CHAPTER 9

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Feedback is most definitely welcome – particularly constructive criticism. Nothing makes me happier than to know what specifically you (the reader) liked, what you didn't like, and (most importantly) why.

Next: The Second Fall


	12. The Second Fall

Epigoni  
by P.H. Wise

An Angel crossover fanfic

Epilogue: The Second Fall

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel. Angel belongs to Joss. I don't own Stargate. I'm pretty sure that belongs to Sci-Fi. Please don't sue me. This story contains spoilers for the final episode of Angel.

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Illyria woke in the dark cave, the only light the pale, flickering light of the dying flashlights. Groo's body lay there still, eyes wide open in death, cold before the now dormant machine. Faith and SG-1 were nowhere to be seen, and their weapons and clothing lay empty on the cold floor of the cavern.

Illyria took up one of the flashlights; guided by its pale, fitful, flickering light, she slowly made her way out of the darkness of the shattered Hellmouth. Past the many dead Jaffa, up the long, winding stairway, past the two corpses of Slayers, all the way to the broken seal.

The First was there waiting for her in the form of Faith as she arrived at the base of the final stairway that lead to the surface. Illyria did not immediately meet her gaze.

"Yo, don't be like that, Bluebird," the First said. "You did pretty damn good. Came within inches of smacking me down. Not many can say that. Well, unless you're B. But even she lost in the end."

Illyria looked wearily at the First but said nothing. At the threshold between the rising sun and the darkness below, she paused.

The First smiled knowingly. "The time of humanity is over. I know it. You know it. You can't go back to that. That door is closed to you now. Those humans that are left will die out soon enough. You know as well as I do that your place is here, Old One. With us. In the dark."

Illyria stepped into the light.

---------------------

Like most stories, ours begins with a girl.

Well, no. Actually, it begins well before that. It actually starts with a Champion. And he was the greatest Champion in all the land. All the monsters were afraid of him: he was such a hero. Then one day he falls in love: with a human girl. She can't stay, though. She leaves, and he follows her back to her home. Only thing is, just because someone hops a dimension or two is no guarantee that things will work out.

That's when our girl enters, stage right. She's a pretty little thing, if you go for Old Ones incarnate in human form, that is. And she and the Champion decide to work together. The Champion sees all the horror and sadness of the human condition, and he gets it in his head to fix it. To make it all right - to end the Apocalypse on the side of light.

He gets his chance. Because of him, every man woman and child gets taken up to a higher level of existence. Ascended, even. They're given the power and the knowledge of gods, and the ability to become perfect.

We weren't ready for it. Them higher ups have a rule, see. Anyone who ascends should be able to do it without outside help. That day, we all saw why.

They called it the Second Fall. Them that didn't just call it 'Hell,' that is. For one, brief, shining moment, all the wrong things were made right. But human beings were still human beings. They made war on each other, and the Others – the Ancients – had to step in and put a stop to it before they threw the whole universe for the loop.

Mankind was cast down from paradise onto the blasted earth, and this time, there was no doubt about what had just happened. Nothing but the knowledge that they'd had everything: perfection, nirvana, enlightenment, heaven – and now it was all gone. And they had no one to blame but themselves.

They called it the Second Fall.

Our girl, though, her story was just beginning...

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Pretty much the only military force to survive the whole ordeal relatively intact was the SGC. Prometheus was barely operable in the wake of the Ascension. Even its Asgard-built shields had not been able to protect it from the celestial war. Half of the F302 squadron that accompanied it to the Hellmouth had been lost to the whims of humans playing with cosmic toys. The other half, led by one Captain Cameron Mitchell, newly recovered from his extensive injuries, had managed to escort the heavily damaged Prometheus to the Alpha Site for dry dock and repairs. Prometheus's sister ship, the newly christened Daedalus, was also spared, having been out on its shakedown cruise at the time of the destruction. They and the off world teams returned home to find nothing but blasted earth and shell-shocked survivors. Cheyenne Mountain was still intact, more or less, and it wasn't long before the SGC started gathering up all the survivors they could find and ferrying them off to other worlds.

It was perhaps the most difficult undertaking in human history, and many died before they could be rescued. Earth was no longer habitable. Nothing would grow in the soil, and the air had been fouled to levels such that prolonged exposure was dangerous. With the help of the Asgard, however, a good half of those that survived were evacuated successfully. All told that was about ten million people, mostly from China, Russia, and the United States. Ten million out of nearly seven billion.

Among the evacuees were Illyria and Dawn. The Groosalug lay dead in the bowels of the Hellmouth, slain by Illyria's hand. Of SG-1 and Faith, there was no sign. Jack O'Neill, who survived the forced descension back into human form, held out hope that his team was still alive. Certainly he would not count them dead until he saw the bodies.

In time, Atlantis and the Alpha Site became the last refuges of the Tau'ri. Earth-That-Was, or what was left of her, cradle of the second evolution of the human form, was left to the demons, the vampires, and the forces of darkness.

THE END

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I hope you all have enjoyed reading this story as much as I've enjoyed writing it. Thanks, and God bless. The sequel, which is now in the works, will focus on Illyria and Dawn, and the fate of Atlantis. As for the Alpha site, I think I've given all the hints that really need to be given for what happens next there.


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